Waiting For the End
by bookbabes
Summary: Waiting just happens to be a part of life. Lily Potter is waiting to get over her vampire ex-boyfriend and waiting to fall in love again. And maybe this one will love her for who she is, instead of who she pretends to be. She's always waiting for the end.
1. Chapter 1

**Waiting for the End- Chapter One**

Most of the people in our school knew very well that our divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, was a right old fraud, excluding the giggling Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. But, I promise you, Harry and I heard something real in the deep voice. Professor Trelawney had made a real prediction. I recalled it back to Dumbledore the next year, and he began to pace and mutter.

What Dumbledore knew was that Harry and I were going to need protecting, and me more than my twin brother, Harry. Then, Dumbledore had a stroke of genius, which he often had. Dumbledore needed a mission done, and who better was to do it than Isabella Lily Potter, who preferred to be called by her middle name thank you very much!

I was the perfect candidate for this, my metemorphmagus abilities meant that I could hide who I really was. I also needed to be sent away somewhere safe, and Lord Voldemort has not taken over America. Dumbledore needed to win over a coven of vampires, and here I was the perfect candidate.

I was sent to Forks when I was fourteen, while Harry was in the Twiwizard tournament. I lived with a man by the name of Charlie Swan, he was a Squib that Dumbledore knew well and trusted.

I changed my appearance to go, to brown hair and brown eyes; I especially liked my work on the brown eyes. I never knew I was a metemorphmagus until Hagrid came to tell Harry and me that we were wizards and witches. My hair had always been bright red, like my mothers. Dumbledore assumed it was because I was so miserable at the Dursley's that I never had the ability before. He also assumed that this was my natural hair color.

I needed to befriend the Cullen's and send reports to Dumbledore frequently; I never really expected to fall in love with Edward. I got a paper cut during my birthday though, July 31st, and the Cullen's left. I couldn't tell them who I was to make them stop. That wasn't part of the mission. So he left me while I stayed in the woods, alone.

I stormed back home, upset with myself, and my hair turned to tomato red and my dad's eyes, hazel-brown. In looks, Harry and I were almost completely opposite in our natural state. I looked like my mum, with Dad's eyes and Harry looked like Dad, with Mum's eyes.

I made sure Charlie wasn't with Harry, Billy, or any of his other friends before I entered the room. My hair was still red. "Bella… your hair is red."

"Yeah, I know, Edward left," I said and shifted my gaze to the floor. I looked up and he was giving me a look of sympathy. "I'm going for a walk," I muttered as I walked out of the house and slammed the door.

The grass was wet, as always, and I headed for the too-green forests of Forks. I walked through the woods and kicked rocks around and muttered a few swear words. Not only did I fail in my mission, I also lost my vampire boyfriend. How many people can say that?

It was darkening around me so I decided that it was time to turn around and tell Dumbledore about what happened. I turned around and felt a chill surround me. It was not just a blow of wind, but chillier. I knew the feeling. No, not here, they don't come here.

But they were here. Their black hoods surrounding me, there were two, floating around and sucking the life out of everything. I backed away and reached for my wand in my back pocket.

I brewed up one of my happiest memories, "_EXPECTO PATRONUM!_" a silver mist-like figure of a frog sprout from my wand. The silver frog jump happily from silver-lily pad to lily pad and making slight splashes in the silver water.

The dementor flew backwards and disappeared from sight while I sent my patronus after the other dementor, sending him off and away from sight as well.

I was frozen in the woods for seconds while my heart pounded audibly in my chest. I came to my sense and sprint the other way, not even tripping once, because if you want to know a secret, I don't trip. I just thought it'd be fun to play a clumsy girl for once. But really, I'm brilliant on a broomstick…

When I ran to the house I pulled open the door and slammed it as fast as I could. "Bella, what's wrong?" Charlie asked.

"Dementors," I whispered with a frightened look on my face.

A tawny bird then came swooping in with a letter in its claws. Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin, this is not good. I opened it with shaky fingers.

_Dear Miss Potter, _

_We have received intelligence that you preformed the Patronus Charm at seventeen minutes past eight this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area. _

_The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand. _

_As you have already received an official warning for previous offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 AM on August 12__th__. _

_Hoping you are well,_

_Mafalda Hopkirk_

_Improper Use of Magic Office_

_Ministry of Magic_

Charlie looked suspiciously from the letter to the look on my face. "What'd it say?"

"I've been expelled," I said, slightly above a whisper.

Another bird swooped in, tiny and fidget-y, then and landed on the counter. I took the second letter into my hands and read it.

_Lily,_

_You have not been expelled yet. Stay in the house with Charlie and do not, under any circumstances, give up your wand. Dumbledore is sorting everything out._

_ Arthur Weasley_

"What's this," Charlie asked referring to the owl that was fluttering around disgracefully in his kitchen.

"Must be Pig."

Charlie gave me an odd sort of look. "Pig?"

"Short for Pigwidgeon, it's Ron's owl."

"Oh, what's this next letter say?"

"It was Mr. Weasley. He said that Dumbledore is sorting everything out." I tried to sound brave, and it might have shown in my voice. I was scared though, horribly scared. I couldn't possibly be expelled from Hogwarts! My life was Hogwarts; Hogwarts was like my first home. My hair turned a light green.

"Bella… your hair…"

"Yeah, I know, it does that sometimes. I've tried to control it but sometimes it gets the best of me."

Yet another owl made its way through the open window and Charlie looked at it. "Thank God I decided to open that window," he muttered.

The next letter was from Sirius.

_Lily, _

_ Arthur just told us what happened. Don't leave the house again, no matter what you do. _

_ Sirius_

Why was it so important that I can't even leave the house? "I'm going to bed," I decided, although most likely I would not be sleeping any time soon. I could make an effort though, of lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling.

"I might as well also," he said as he put his hands through his short hair. "Night."

I climbed up the stairs, slowly, and got into my room. I plopped down onto the bed and sighed. This was great, because now I have more time to think, which is not always a good thing.

I tried to think good thoughts at first. I thought about my friends, Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, and my twin brother Harry. I haven't seen them since last March. Instead I've been running with the vampires, who left me. I never ever succeeded in my mission.

I made a mental list over my mission.

Things I learnt: how to make a good, fake American accent. Vampires don't love me.

Things that confused me: What is a Bieber Fever? Is it contagious? Is it dangerous? I must find out more…

Things I liked: Faking an accent is awesome…

_Crash!_

I jumped to my feet. That was no way Charlie making that noise, I could already hear his snores coming from down the hall and this sound sounded like it came from the kitchen. I drew my wand and crept out my room and down to the source of the crash.

"Put that wand away," growled a familiar voice. Professor Moody came out of the shadows.

"Professor Moody?"

"Yes, yes, that is me," he said in that same scratchy voice.

"Hello Lily," Professor Lupin said as he came out of the shadows following Moody.

"Professor Lupin," I cried gleefully and gave him a quick hug.

"I am no longer your professor now, just call me Remus."

There was other faces around that I didn't recognize but Moody said, "Get your stuff girl, we're leaving."

"This is Nymphadora Tonks," Remus said as he introduced me to a girl with shoulder-length teal hair and was only a bit taller than myself.

"Don't call me Nymphadora," she said as she glared at him.

"Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be called by her surname only."

"You would also if your mother named you Nymphadora. Wotcher Isabella," she said and smiled.

"It's Lily, I don't like my first name."

"See, she's not the only one!"

"Just help her pack her stuff," Remus sighed and rolled his eyes. I showed her the way to my room and I grabbed all of my wizarding stuff I kept hidden under some loose floorboards, in the closet, and in drawers.

"Wow, a Firebolt," said Tonks amazed. "I have a Comet 260 myself, but wow."

"Yeah, Sirius gave it to me," I said. She walked around my room while I grabbed my trunk and all of my needs for the school year. While I did so she took a look in my mirror. "I really don't think teal's my color," she said. She shut her eyes tight and her hair changed to a bubblegum pink. "Better," she sighed.

"You're a metemorphmagus too?" I was happy so my hair turned to golden.

"Ah, a fellow metemorphmagus, I think we'll get along just fine," she smiled at me. "Now let's get this stuff into your trunk." With a swoosh of her wand all of my clothing and materials fit itself into my trunk. "It's a bit sloppy, but I think we can deal."

I grabbed my trunk and my broom and made my way down the steps as quietly as I could. I'm just thankful that Harry kept Hedwig with him. Hedwig was the pet Hagrid gave us that we both shared. Besides, if I brought Hedwig with me, how was I supposed to explain a pet owl?

"Now, I've left a note explaining to Charlie and we are on our way to England," Moody said.

"How are we getting there?" I asked Moody.

"We're riding a Pegasus to England," he said sardonically.

"_Really?_ Those don't exist, do they?"

"Of course they exist; you just breed unicorns and birds."

"We're taking a Pegasus then?"

"No," Moody barked with a slight laugh. "Now, the Ministry is tracking everything, we can't risk making a portkey, Floo Powder is out, and those damn metal birds take too long. So we're left with brooms."

"We're riding brooms _across the ocean_? We'll never make it!" What was Mad-Eye thinking? We can't ride broomsticks across the ocean!

"Oh, we will make it. Now, Lily you will need to stay behind Tonks and everyone else knows the formation. If one of us is to die, we are to stay in our ranks. Do you all understand?"

"Is that likely to happen?" I didn't want people dying. I could just take a metal bird if needed. They really didn't need to go through all this trouble for me…

Mad-Eye Moody just focused both of his eyes on me and looked away, without answering my question. I gulped. "Get into formation," he barked at as all. He got into the lead while the rest of us made a V like geese travelling south for the winter. I was in the middle of the formation, with people on either side of me. I mounted my broom and waited for the count-off.

With a salute from his head he kicked off, and the rest of us followed his lead as we bounded into the night sky. I got farther away from Forks, where I met a coven of vampires and fell in love. They didn't want me anyhow from my understanding; I'm most likely better off without them. I've got friends, my brother, tons of people to turn too. I'm not a girl who was independent on them entirely; I'm my own person.

Flying in the night sky was nearly the best thing imaginable. You were just above the entire world; all the little problems and fights from down below weren't real. It was just you, the beautiful night sky, and Mad-Eye barking directions at you continuously, which puts a slight damper on the mood.

"THE LEFT, GO TO THE LEFT!" All of our brooms would swerve to the left to match Mad-Eye's mad driving. We went to the right, up, down, he also suggested to all of us to try some zigzaggedness. We did too. He's really paranoid, but I guess that's what happens when you've been an ex-auror and made so many enemies and they are all out to get you. The only bad thing about this paranoid stuff is that I want to be an Auror someday; I hope I'm not that mad.

Then, we were over the ocean as it was splashing beneath us and Mad-Eye stopped barking so many orders as no boats were to be seen. It was just a peaceful ride, peaceful while everyone was shivering in the robes and frozen to their broomsticks. We had an entire ocean to go.

There was a boat under us as we were flying maybe a half-hour, hour, who knew, and Mad-Eye yelled out, "GO THROUGH THE CLOUDS!"

Tonks responded by saying, "ARE YOU MAD, MAD-EYE? WE'RE ALREADY FREEZING AND AREN'T EVEN TO LAND YET!"

"GO THROUGH THE CLOUDS!" Moody repeated and we all had to comply. We flew through the clouds, and trust me; it's not the cotton candy sugar cloud that commercials and cartoons tell you they are. You can't lay on it and day-dream. No we went through it and it was like jumping into water in December. Not very pleasant, Tonks was right; we were all even more freezing now.

In fifteen minutes time we made it to land, but where on the land was a complete mystery. We could be anywhere, going anywhere. I didn't even know where we were going, The Burrow, maybe? I think I may just kill someone if they make me go to the Dursley's.

Fifteen more minutes and we may have gotten somewhere, yet we might have not. Who really know? I was so tired, I just wanted to get wherever we were going already. I could practical feel my hair turning less vibrant. Yeah, I could feel my hair losing color. Tonk's bubblegum pink hair was slightly less pink and a lot more chewed-gum like.

Okay, I don't think I've _ever_ been on a broom this long. In all my years, maybe once or twice I would have liked too but never again, especially not across oceans and continents and it's already kind of late. But abruptly Mad-Eye made a dive and the rest of the formation followed suit as he barked more orders on what to do. I can't believe how he seemed just as alert as he was back in America as he was now. It's bloody unbelievable.

Finally, we landed and in front of us were strikingly similar buildings; we were standing in front of a space between eleven and thirteen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Waiting for the End- Chapter Two**

"Memorize this," Moody growled as he handed me a slip of old parchment. _The Order of the Phoenix Headquarters is located at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, London._ I read over it several times before looking up.

"What's the Order of the—"

"Not here, girl," Moody said as he pushed my question aside. "We'll explain when we get inside."

"Think about what you just read, Lily," Remus suggested and no sooner than I did another grimy, old house sprouted from the ground and formed between eleven and thirteen and pushed them inside. The Muggles inside, who were watching television, did not seem to take a notice at all.

"Come on then," Moody said as he pulled the door open.

"Try to be quiet," Lupin told me. "We don't need to be waking anything up."

"What do you—" I said before someone shushed me.

I walked quietly into the house and out of a doorway at the end of the hall a woman with bright red hair came out. "Mrs. Weasley," I said excitedly as I saw her appear down the hall.

"Oh, Lily," she said and engulfed me in a hug. "How was America? I told Dumbledore that it was much too dangerous to send you away. If he needed to protect you that badly…"

"Oh, I'm quite alright, Mrs. Weasley," I assured her. Well, I was fine physically; the emotional part of me was disputable.

"We've all missed you very much," she told me.

"I've missed you all too," I told her.

"Oh, Molly," came a man's voice from behind my second mum. "You've said your greetings now let me see my Goddaughter."

From behind Mrs. Weasley out came a man with long, dark hair. It was convicted murderer, Godfather of the Potter twins, Sirius Black."Sirius!" I exclaimed and hugged him.

"How was America?" He asked me during our hug.

"Home is better," I admitted as I still held on to him.

He laughed and released me. "I'm glad you love us."

"Sirius, get back in here, the meeting is still going on, you know," a scolding male voice said from the door.

"Meeting?"

"Yes, I suppose Hermione, Ron, Fred, and George will explain everything to you," Sirius said.

"Your room is up the stairs first door on the left. You'll be sharing with Hermione and Ginny. I imagine the kids will be in there, or the room over," Mrs. Weasley told me.

I nodded and crept quietly up the steps as to make sure that whatever was in this house was not to be disturbed. I dropped my bag on one of the beds, but no one was in the room. I crept up some more steps and found myself on the second floor. I started opening random doors until I found at least someone.

I opened one and I was attacked by someone with very bushy hair. "Lily! Oh, I've been so worried! I can't believe you and Harry both got attacked by dementors and this hearing is just ridiculous! They can't expel you, I'll have to double-check but I don't think they can if you were defending yourself! Oh, I have so much to tell you!"

"Come on, Hermione, let her breathe," Ron suggested. She stepped back and I went to go give him a hug as well.

"What's happened since I've been gone? I only know the basics…"

"You know You-Know-Who came back?"

"Yes," I said gravely. "What's the Ministry doing about this?"

Hermione and Ron looked at each other before Hermione responded. "Lily… have you been getting the Prophet?"

"No, the Prophet doesn't deliver to America. Why?"

Hermione sighed before she said anything. "Fudge denies that he's back. Rita Skeeter started off by saying Harry has hallucinations, as well as you, and he's not safe. Now they're saying that you two are just two kids who like to tell tall tales for the fame."

"Bloody hell! Are they serious? Do they think that I _want _all this?" I exclaimed angrily. "Do they think I wanted my mum and dad to be murdered?"

"Lily, Lily, calm down! They're just being stupid. They're trying to get everyone against Dumbledore."

"Why would they do that?"

"They don't want anyone to believe he's back. He's trying to say what happened at the Twiwizard tournament—"

"What happened at the Twiwizard Tournament?" I cut in.

"That's when You-Know-Who came back and—" Ron said but cut off when Hermione sent him a glare.

"And _what_?"

"Lily… Ce—Cedric d-died…" said Hermione quietly.

"WHAT?" I shrieked. "NO! NO! YOU'RE LYING TO ME!"My heart fell to the bottom of my chest and my eyes began to water, the tears threatening to fall. The tears did, and I sobbed as I sat down and leaned against the floor. The noticeable hole in my heart became bigger, if even possible.

Cedric Diggory, my ex-boyfriend, I had to break up with him when I went to America, telling him I was going in an exchange program for the rest of the year… I had hoped though, that when I came back… "HOW COME NO ONE TOLD ME?"

"We wanted to, really, but Dumble—"

_POP!_

Both Hermione and Ron yelled and then Hermione started scolding them. "Lily Pad!" I was still crying and didn't want them to see, not one bit, so I didn't even look up at my best friends. But they didn't need to see my face to know that I was sad.

"Oh Merlin, her hair's dark blue," they said together. "What happened Lily Pad?"

From me, he got sniffles as his answer, but Hermione said quietly, "She just found out about Cedric." More tears exploded when she said his name. I felt so stupid, none of them are supposed to see me cry…

They both came to me and sat on either side, Fred on my left and George on my right.

"C'mon Lily, Cedric was a great guy and he's in a better place now," Fred tried to comfort me.

"You said he was a dumbass pretty boy who wore too much glitter," I said through sniffles as I remember Fred's reaction when I told him I was dating Cedric Diggory in my fourth year.

"Well he was, this is just me trying to make you stop crying. Is it working? Besides, he's using his glitter to fight off the evil stuff that wants you dead!"

"If Voldemort's defeated by glitter I must suggest a visit to the craft store to Dumbledore and Harry," I said thoughtfully and giggling.

"All better," both Fred and George announced, but didn't move from my sides but squished me like a sandwich instead. I was getting tired and still sad, my hair still blue and I leaned my head on Fred's shoulder.

Mrs. Weasley burst the door open and said "Dinner—Oh, dear, what happened?"

It seemed everyone knew the color code to my changing hair colors. Hermione looked to Mrs. Weasley and mouthed 'Cedric' and she nodded in understanding. "Come down whenever, you're ready dear, dinner's ready."

With a glance to me Ron and Hermione left and George and Fred stayed with me until the sniffles stopped. "Ready to go?" Fred and George jumped up to their feet.

"I suppo—" I didn't even get to finish my answer and Fred through me over his shoulders. "Let. Me. Down."

"No," Fred said and they didn't run down the steps or anything, no, they disapparated with me. It was a horrible feeling, like all my guts were being squished and my body was turning inside out. It felt like it would never end I thought, and as soon as I thought about it, it did.

We arrived in the kitchen and I started gasping for breath and kicking Fred, no help. "We got the girl," the twins announced at the same time.

"Fred! You didn't take her against her will, did you?" Mrs. Weasley yelled at Fred.

"No, she wanted to come down; I just got her here a bit quicker." I was still being held on too, and I was upside down to add to the joy off it, trying to gasp for breath and kick Fred. I think I kicked him in the face.

"Ow, Lil," he said as he rubbed his face.

"Let Lily down, Fred," Mrs. Weasley said and I was set on my feet again. I had to be used to being on the ground and my insides feeling all normal inside of me. My hair changed from dark blue, or whatever it happened to be, to blood red.

"She's going to murder you, mate," Ron said simply as I glared at Fred. He cowered away.

"Sit, sit," Mrs. Weasley said to Fred, George, and I. "I give you permission to kill my son later, Lily."

"Thank you for your blessing, Mrs. Weasley," I said with a smile and sat down next to Hermione. Fred sat down next to me and I ignored him all throughout dinner. I loved the dinner, as always, things didn't seem to change much. Hermione yelled at Ron for eating too fast and he talked with his mouth full. The food was excellent; Fred and George shot peas at each other. Fred began shooting peas at me.

"Hey Lily!" Pea. "Hey Lily!" Pea. "Hey Lily!" Pea. "Hey Lily!"

"Would you stop it?" I snapped. "I'm mad at you, and you're making it really hard for me to stay that way!"

"So you're not mad at me anymore?"

"Yes I am."

"Aw, come on, Lily Pad," Fred begged me with puppy dog eyes.

"Fine," I said and rolled my eyes. "But I'm still going to kill you." He pouted and I ignored him.

"Does anybody know when Harry's coming?" I asked.

"In the next week or so," Mrs. Weasley answered me.

"Why so long?"

"I have my reasons," Dumbledore said. I nodded.

Once we were all fed we ventured off for about an hour more before having to go to bed so I pulled Fred and George aside.

"I have an awesome idea for a new prank," I told both of them. They perked up.

"We're all ears," they both said.

"Come on, up stairs," I said to both and they disapparated to their room. "That is not fair," I muttered. But I knew I wouldn't want to go with one of them.

I climbed up the four flights of steps, just to get to their bedroom. When I got there I immediately knew which room they were in from all of the laughing. I burst the door open and looked at the two of them.

"Fancy seeing you here Lily Pad," Fred said with a huge grin on his face.

"Wasn't expecting you," said George.

I rolled my eyes at them, "Do you want to hear my plan or not?"

"This must be genius," George said.

"Let's hear it then," Fred said.

"Well I was gone for quite a while, nearly five or six months, right?" They nodded. "And in that time people can get up to a lot of things…"

"You didn't," Fred said immediately.

"Oh, calm down, of course I didn't! Are you crazy? I'm just saying that with my certain skills…"

They looked at each other for a second and thought for a second. "That's brilliant."

"Brilliancy is one of my many talents. Admit it; your pranks became ten times better when I came along."

"No way," they said shaking their head in denial.

"Keep telling yourselves that," I said and laughed. Mrs. Weasley opened the door and said to us all. "Time to get to bed now, Lily, downstairs with Hermione and Ginny."

"Of course," I said and headed towards the door. "See you tomorrow, guys."

"Bye, Lily Pad," they chorused as they exited the room.

**xXx**

_ "I don't love you anymore," he said. "I never did. I'm leaving you, Bella."_

_ "No! Don't leave! Please don't leave me," the tears began to fall. _

_ "I have too; I can't keep living like this."_

_ "NO! Don't leave me! Don't leave me! You can't leave me!"_

_ "Lily… Lily…"_

_ "No… No… No… Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" _

_ "We're not leaving Lily, you need to wake up."_

_ "No… No… d-don't leave me."_

_ "We're not, just wake up, everything's okay…" _

I woke up in the now lit room with faces all around me. "Wha—what happened?"

"I think you were having a bad dream," Hermione said.

"_Think_? That must have been one hell of a nightmare. What was it about?"

_WHAM! _"Fred don't ask her that," Ginny said.

"Sorry," Fred apologized.

"You should have seen your hair," Ginny commented. "It changed colors like crazy when you sleep!"

"What? No, it can't!"

"It did," Hermione confirmed.

"No, Edward would h—" Merlin's Beard! Did I really just mention him? No, no, no, no.

"Lily! Who's Edward?" Hermione gave me a sharp look.

"No one," I said quickly.

"It's most definitely someone," George said.

"And why would he see you sleeping?" Fred said after his brother.

"Lily, what happened in America?"

"_Nothing _happened," I snapped.

"Something happened," the twins said at the same time as I grew more and more annoyed with them. "You had a dream about it, didn't you?" asked George.

"It must have been bad; we could hear you screaming all the way upstairs, Lily Pad." Fred worried.

"I'm fine," I muttered.

"No, you're not," Fred insisted. "You know you can tell us anything, Lily!"

"I know," I sighed. "Not—not yet, okay? I'm going to bed."

Fred, George, and Ginny looked like they were about to argue but Hermione cut in. "Okay," she said as the others glared at her. "Just know that we are always there for you."

"I know," I sighed. She turned the lights out and Fred and George disapparated away. Ginny and Hermione scrambled into their beds. It took me a while to fall back asleep, but I did. When I did, I had the dream again and woke up crying. I couldn't stop crying either.

I left my room silently and wandered around the house. I found myself in the drawing room and sat on a sofa, crying. "I figured you would come here," said a voice.

"Fred? What are you doing here?" My voice sounded weird from crying, and it was obvious I had been.

"Like I said, I knew you would come so I waited for you," he said simply. "Was it really that bad?"

"I don't want to talk about it now."

"Will you someday?"

"I may," I said. "If I want too, I'll be sure to come to you first," I promised. I could feel another tear fall.

"Aw, come here," he said being strangely sympathetic. I didn't object though and leaned against him as I cried, and set my legs up on this sofa.

"Thank you," I said.

"This is what best friends are for," he replied.

"Thank Merlin I have a good one then."

Fred comforted me and I couldn't help but to fall asleep. It was a normal sleep too, not something I had been expecting. There were no nightmares, no thrashing and screaming, something that I felt was going to soon be a regular thing.

Thankfully, as a soft light flooded parts of the room we both fled to our bedrooms before anyone even noticed anything that had happened.

** Review, please? Thanks for all the favorites, reviews, and alerts. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Waiting for the End- Chapter Three**

As the week passed and George, Fred, and I planned to take action to our prank as soon as Harry got back, which really could be any day, any minute, any second, no one tells us anything, too young apparently. So when Harry comes I suppose it will be a total surprise.

"I SUPPOSE YOU'VE BEEN HAVING A REAL LAUGH, HAVEN'T YOU, ALL HOLED UP HERE TOGETHER-" came a very familiar voice from downstairs. I guess when I say any second, I really meant it.

"He's here," Fred and George said at the same time. "Let's go!"

"Wait! Shouldn't we wait a little, he sounds kind of mad? Shouldn't we let him cool off a bit?"

"Here, Lily Pad, we'll go down and warn him and you can just do your thing and laugh at the expression on his face, okay?"

"I don't know if that's—" _Pop! _They just left me! That is not fair! Ugh! I walked down some steps to the room where I guessed they would be. I took a few breaths and transformed to the correct form. I sighed before opening the door.

"Hey, Harry, I need to tell you something," I said as I opened the door very carefully and quietly, with few creaks. Once he saw me he opened his mouth in shock and he looked simply furious to put it in no better words.

"Lily! You're pregnant? No way did you do… who did it? I'm going to kill somebody! I can't believe you would…" he began yelling, which was kind of scary. Fred and George were sniggering in the background.

"Kidding!" I smiled with a cheerful expression and changed back into my usual body. He was glaring at me now. That's not good.

"You haven't seen me since March, are you just going to stand there looking like a complete idiot or are you going to give your sister a hug?"

He rolled his eyes and I ran to him to give him a hug. "I actually believed you for a second," he admitted.

"Oh, Harry, I wouldn't do that," I told him before releasing.

"So do_ you_ know anything?"

"Not a thing," I sighed.

"Anyway, Harry, you're interfering with reception. Extendable Ears," he held up the dangly string that lead away to the hall. "We're trying to hear what's going on downstairs."

"You'd want to be careful," Ron said. "If Mum sees another one of those…"

"It's worth the risk, that's a major meeting going on down there," Fred said.

The door opened then and Ginny burst through with her hair nearly leading the way. "Oh, hello, Harry," she said quite brightly. "I thought I heard your voice." She turned to Fred, George, and I. "It's a no-go with the Extendable Ears, she's gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door."

"How do you know?" George asked looking sad.

"Tonks told me how to find out. You just chuck stuff at the door and if it can't make contact the door's been Imperturbed. I've been flicking Dungbombs at it from the top of the stairs and they soar away from it, so there's no way Extendable Ears will get under the gap."

Fred heaved a great sigh. "Shame, I've really fancied finding out what old Snape's been up too."

"Snape! Is he here?" asked Harry.

"Yeah," said George as he closed the door and sat on a bed. Fred, Ginny, and I sat on a bed as well. "Giving a report. Top Secret."

"Git," Fred added idly.

"He's on our side now," Hermione said.

Ron snorted, "Doesn't stop him being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us."

"Bill doesn't like him either," Ginny stated as if that was all we needed on the matter.

Harry sank onto another bed, opposite the one I was on. "Is Bill here? I thought he was working in Egypt?"

"He applied for a desk job so he could come home and work for the order," Fred explained. "He says he misses the tombs but" insert smirk "there are compensations."

"What d'you mean?"

"Remember old Fleur Delacour?" George smirked as well. "She got a job at Gringott's to eempwve 'er Eeeenglish—"

"And Bill's been giving her a lot of private lessons," Fred sniggered and I rolled my eyes.

"Charlie's in the Order too," said George, "but he's still in Romania. Dumbledore wants as many foreign wizards brought in as possible, so Charlie's trying to make contacts on his days off."

"Couldn't Percy do that?" Once he said that we all exchanged dark looks. Harry didn't know yet. Percy had a huge row with his Mum and Dad. They told me about it and it sounds horrible. How could he just run out from his family? I didn't even have a loving mother and father like he had and he just ran away from them. He's clearly hurt both of them. I don't get it…

I know Percy has always been a bit… pompous but I never expected him to do something to that extent.

They explained what happened while I just leaned back and watched him. I didn't really want to hear it again. It sounded horrible and whenever I thought about Percy leaving a loving family I just can't help thinking…

Then they started talking about how Dumbledore's name is like owl droppings. I think that is just as ridiculous, probably more. Why would they think Dumbledore's crazy? I know Fudge used to ask Dumbledore for advice like crazy. Now he's too stupid to admit that we're all in danger and someone has got to stop Voldemort!

And then they mentioned the Daily Prophet, yet another thing to be angered at. Not only is it not reporting the fact that Voldemort is back and plans to kill us all, it's been making out Harry and I to be complete idiots. We're not, in case anyone was wondering.

"Well, you'd need to read it cover-to-cover to pick it up, but—um— they mention you and Lily a few times a week." I sighed deeply at Hermione's words.

"But I'd have seen—"

"Harry, it's not front page stuff," I told him.

"They just slip you two in like you're a standing joke," Ginny said, shaking her head.

"It's quite nasty, really," Hermione said and I could tell she was forcing herself to become calm. "They're just building on Rita's stuff.

Ah, old Rita Skeeter, Hermione told me about her horrid article and her secret to how she had done it all. She really should have kept her in a jar for the entire year, who wouldn't want a nasty pet beetle?

"But she's not writing for them anymore, is she?"

"Oh, no, she's kept her promise—not that she's got any choice. But she's laid the foundation for what their trying to do now.

"Which is what?" Harry asked impatiently. He's not going to like this…

"Okay, you know she wrote you were collapsing all over the place and saying your scar was hurting and all that?"

"Yeah," Harry said. I heard about that as well. Those stories were just stupid.

"Well now they're writing about you two as though the two of you are deluded, attention-seeking person who thinks he's a great tragic person or something," Hermione explained rather quickly, as if learning this quickly was better than hearing it come at him slow. "They keep slipping in snide comments about you. If some far-fetched story appears they'll say 'A Tale Worthy of The Potter Twins' and if anyone has a funny accident they'll say 'Let's hope they haven't got a scar or we'll be asked to worship him next.'"

"I don't want anyone to worship me," Harry said with anger.

"We know you don't, Harry. And I don't want anyone to worship me either. Fudge is just trying to turn us into something no one will believe. They just want to think we're some kids who make up stories to keep us famous," I explained, just as angrily. Hermione looked frightened by Harry at this point anyhow.

"I didn't ask—I didn't want—Voldemort killed my parents! I got famous because he murdered my parents but couldn't kill me! Who wants to be famous for that? Don't they think I'd rather—?"

"We know, Harry," Ginny repeated to him earnestly.

"And of course they didn't say a word about either or your Dementor attacks," Hermione scoffed.

"You've been attacked too?" he asked me.

"Yeah, I think mine was after yours though."

"They didn't even announce that you two broke the International Statute of Secrecy. We thought it would, it would mix in so well with this message their trying to send out." Then Hermione started talking about their hearing, and I could tell Harry was trying to avoid the subject.

No one needed to change the subject though because they could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Fred yanked on the string of the Extendable Ear and grabbed me suddenly. I was being unwillingly squished again for a nauseating few seconds before reappearing in Fred and George's room.

"Would you _stop doing that_?"

"Nope," Fred said, as he smirked at me and hurriedly through the Extendable Ear under his or George's bed.

Mrs. Weasley came up here next to tell us of dinner. We agreed to be down soon and waited for her to leave. They actually walked down the steps with me this time but that was so they could try the Extendable Ears out more in the stairway. Fred was carefully lowering it to the mass of people below. It was useless though as the group made their way to the front door.

"Damnit," Fred whispered as he pulled the flesh-like string back up. Once he had it he stuffed it into his right pocket and walked down the steps with her. As they descended the stairs they head a huge _CRASH!_

"Tonks!" cried Mrs. Weasley as she tripped over something, most likely that umbrella stand, she tripped over it once before.

"I'm sorry," we could hear Tonks wailing, Fred and George both sniggered but I slapped them both on the arms. "It's that stupid umbrella stand, that's the second time I've tripped over…" Her apologies got washed away by the screaming. I covered my ears to mute the sound slightly but I could still hear Sirius's mum screaming. "Filth! Scum…" and her normal rant.

Lupin and Mrs. Weasley attempted to close the curtains but it had no effect. Mrs. Weasley began to stun the other portraits around and Sirius appeared at a door. "Shut up you horrible old hag! Shut up!"

"Yooooouuuuu," she howled in response. "Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!"

"I said—shut—up!"

Then Sirius and Lupin managed to close the curtains and her wailing gradually came to a halt.

"Hello Harry, I see you've met my mother," Sirius said. It really was a quite lovely introduction.

Sirius explained to Harry about the Permanent Sticking Charm on the dear portrait. Fred, George, and I went to go take seats at the old table. I sat next to Fred again and I assume Harry, Ginny, or Hermione will take a place next to me.

When Harry came into the room Mr. Weasley greeted him. When Mrs. Weasley came she snatched a plan for the previous meeting off the table, saying it should have been taken away at the end of the meeting. We didn't really mind though after all.

Harry was introduced to the filthy man, Mundungus Fletcher. Mrs. Weasley needed people to help get dinner out before midnight so the entire table went to help, minus Harry whom Mrs. Weasley claimed had a long enough journey. Sirius and Mundungus stayed behind with him as well.

Fred, George and I were helping with the stew. Mrs. Weasley looked at the stew and told them to please, carry it out to the table, along with an iron flagon of butterbeer, a heavy wooden bread board, and a knife. Of course, they couldn't use their hands to carry it. They levitated it to the table and Mrs. Weasley screamed, "Fred—George—NO JUST CARRY THEM!"

The knife landed right where Sirius's hand had been seconds before. I was covering my hand to hide my laughter, seeing it wouldn't be approved of by Mrs. Weasley.

"FOR HEAVENS SAKE! THERE WAS NO NEED—I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS—JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"

"We were just trying to save a bit of time," Fred said as he pulled the knife out of the table. "Sorry Sirius mate didn't mean too—"

Harry and Sirius were both laughing hysterically, as was I. This seriously could not be getting any better right now.

"Boys," Mr. Weasley said as he put the cauldron of stew into the centre of the table. "Your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility know that you've come of age.

"None of your brothers caused this sort of trouble! Bill didn't feel the need to apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't charm everything he met! Percy—" she broke up suddenly. Percy was not a fun subject at the time.

"Let's eat," Bill said suddenly before any sort of rampage of tears could occur.

We all sat down and Mrs. Weasley was complimented on her amazing meal, of course. Her food was always wonderful. Tonks was making different noses while Hermione and Ginny laughed.

"I want to try that," I said and shut my eyes and focused on a nose of a duck. I opened my eyes and Fred, George, Ginny, and Hermione were all laughing at me. It must have worked. I continued making various faces, taking longer than usual, and Lupin, Mr. Weasley, and Bill had a discussion about the goblins.

Mrs. Weasley yelled at Mundungus and Sirius explained to Harry why she didn't, and why he was here. Then, Molly suggested it was time for bed as she yawned and several others did the same.

"Not just yet, Molly," Sirius said and turned to look at Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here was ask questions about Voldemort."

The change in the room was drastic. As everyone was once talking happily, it had become quiet and a cold mood settled in like a dementor.

"I did! I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order so—"

"And they're quite right," Mrs. Weasley nearly snapped. "You're too young." She was sitting like she had a metal rod in her back, not at all lethargic anymore.

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order to ask questions? Harry's been trapped in a Muggle house for a month. He's got the right to know what's been happening."

"Hang on," George interrupted angrily.

"How come Harry get's his answers questions?" Fred asked.

"We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us a single stinking thing!" said George.

"You're too young, you're not in the order," Fred mocked his mother in a high-pitched sort of voice. "Harry's not even of age!"

"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing. That's your parent's decision. Harry, on the other hand—"

"Oi!" I spoke up. "I haven't been told anything!" The fact that they may be telling Harry but not me was infuriating. I could feel my hair flair up to Angry Blood Red.

"It's not down to you to decide what's good for Harry," Mrs. Weasley said with a dangerously furious expression. "You haven't forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?"

"Which bit?"

"The bit about not telling Harry more than he needs to know," she said as she emphasized her last three words. Fred, George, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I watched the argument like a good old tennis match.

"I don't intend to tell him more than he needs to know, Molly," Sirius said. "But as he was the one who saw Voldemort come back he has more right than most."

"He's not a member of the Order! He's only fifteen and"

"And he's dealt with as much as most in the Order."

"No one's denying what he's done. But he's still…"

"He's not a child!"

"He's not an adult, either. He's not James, Sirius."

"I'm perfectly clear who he is, Molly," Sirius said.

The continued to shoot back responses one after another, in the end Mrs. Weasley ended up saying, "Very well—Ginny—Ron—Hermione—Lily—Fred—George—I want you out of this kitchen now."

There was instant battle.

"We're of age," Fred and George bellowed together.

"If Harry's allowed to stay, why can't I?" shouted Ron.

"Mum, I want to hear," Ginny wailed.

"If Harry get's to stay I should definitely get to stay! That's sexist!"

"NO! I absolutely forbid!"

"Molly, you can't stop Fred and George, they're of age. And Lily does have a point; she is Harry's twin after all."

"Fred and George are still in school," she argued.

"But they're legally adults now."

"I—oh, all right then—Fred, George, and Lily can stay, but Ron—"

"Harry will tell me and Hermione everything anyway, won't you?"

"Course I will," he said as the two beamed.

"Fine! But Ginny, BED!"

Ginny wasn't too fond of this situation as they could all tell. She stomped and screamed all the way up the stairs and Mrs. Black's unpleasant screeching was heard all the way there.

They explained everything, because they knew much, why they think Fudge is denying that Voldemort is back, how Voldemort isn't doing anything because Harry survived. He went back to tell Dumbledore immediately.

"There's also going to be something extra at Hogwarts this year," Sirius said.

"What's going to be at Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"Vampires are coming, to protect you two," Lupin explained.

"We don't need protection," both Harry and I said but then it sunk in to me.

"What kind of vampires?" I asked quietly and looked at Lupin. Please don't say what I think you're about to say…

"They're perfectly safe," Tonks explained. "They don't even drink human blood." It was them. It had to be them unless it was the Denali's, which I doubted. It had to be them. I needed to leave, before I broke down at the table.

I stood up and the chair slid behind me. "I'm going now," I announced. "Bye," I said lamely and left the kitchen and quietly made it through the hallway. I slipped into the room and Ginny was pacing there, waiting. "What'd they say? Where's Hermione?"

"I reckon she'll be here soon, get your information from her. I'm going to sleep." I got into my more comfortable clothes and lay down on my bed. Sure, I was going to have terrible nightmares. But I was going to anyway, and soon my nightmares were going to become real life again.

**Okay, so someone asked how the MoM would expel Bella/Lily for her magic use when the MoM is in Britain and she's in America. Even though she is in America, they told the MoM she is going on an exchange program and she would be back to Hogwarts the next year. She still has the trace on her. Example, when Hermione went to France back in, was it PoA, if she were to do illegal magic they would catch her. I hope that makes sense and clears up any confusion. **

** Anyway, review, and for anyone who cares, I have the hiccups. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Waiting for the End- Chapter Four **

"Come on, Lily Pad, you have to tell me," Fred insisted. For two nonstop days he has been asking me why I stormed out when they mentioned the vampires had been coming. I never gave him an answer. Things would get bad then.

"There's nothing to tell. I'm fine. Can we talk about something else now?"

"You're not fine. Something is up and you're still having your nightmares, you're going to give Sirius's mum a run for her money." George said somewhat seriously.

"I'm really fine, okay?"

They both rolled their eyes. They didn't believe me, and I suppose they had reason too. Being friends with them since first year they have gotten to know me. I mean, the entire family knows my Hair Color Code.

"It's the vampires, isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said to the two of them.

"It must be the vampires! You stormed out when they said the vampires are coming," Fred said.

"It is not," I argued although it totally was.

"Well lucky you, they're coming today to train so we'll find out if you're lying or not later," George said and I could feel myself pale. I didn't want to encounter them. I don't know which would be worse, if they can tell it's me because of the scent or them not knowing a clue about who I am, or pretended to be.

"Well let's just hope they don't kill us all," I muttered before going to a different part of the room to clean. I could practically feel the glares coming my way from the twins but I ignored them and dusted mindlessly at a shelf, coughing when dust made its way into my throat.

Mrs. Weasley threw open the door and looked at the three of us and the still quite messy room. She sighed and said, "The vampires are here. You're supposed to meet them."

"Sounds fun, mum," Fred said and grabbed a hold of my arm. I gasped as we were travelling painfully to wherever Fred had us going. When we landed by the front door I was gasping for air again.

"I told—you—to—stop—doing—that!" I glared at him and my hair turned blood red.

"Well if you walked that would have taken forever," he said and continued to glare at him. "Look at it this way, Lily Pad, when it's time for you to learn Apparation it will just be too easy!"

"I'm sure that will make me feel better," I said, annoyed, and my hair turned into another color, orange.

"You're hair just changed color," Alice said, shocked.

"Yeah, it does that," I snapped easily at her.

"Be polite, Lily," Sirius came behind me saying. I simply rolled my eyes; this was going to prove to be a difficult task. I looked at all of them. Esme looked caring, Carlisle looked calm, and Emmett looked as if he was on steroids, Rosalie looked annoyed, Alice looked happy, Jasper looked constipated, and Edward looked miserable. I hope the prat is miserable!

"I'm Carlisle Cullen and this is my family," Carlisle said and he pointed out each of his family. I knew them all, but I didn't look as if I did. He pointed to each, explaining their names and who was with whom.

"I'm Fred," George said.

"I'm George," Fred said. I slapped both of them and they sighed.

"I'm George," George said unhappily.

"I'm Fred," Fred said just as unhappily. Some of the Cullen's chuckled, Edward didn't still looking quite upset.

"I'm Lily," I said unhappily. Both Fred and George glared at me. "_What_?"

"If we have to tell them our real names so do you," George said.

"Lily _is_ my name," I said.

"No, it's your nickname," Fred said.

"Fine, my first name is Isabella but I prefer to be called Lily, my middle name," I explained to them.

"It's nice to meet you, Lily," Esme said kindly.

"You also, Mrs. Cullen," I said as politely as possible. Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way down as well and they introduced themselves.

"Where's your twin?" Emmett asked Harry.

"That's me," I said.

"Great," Rosalie said sarcastically as Esme shot her a disapproving look. I'm used to it though, because I know Rosalie, you know, unfortunately. She seems to dislike me as much as Bella.

"Hey mate, why do you look so mad?" Fred asked Edward. Well isn't he nice?

Edward took one glance to the twin and said simply, "No reason."

"No, there has to be a reason," George said. These idiots are so stupid.

He looked to me and scrunched his nose slightly, oh, the smell. Does he realize it's me?

Molly came rushing down the steps and saw the vampires. "Hello, I'm Molly Weasley," she said and went to shake Esme's hand. She did and shivered.

"Sorry," Esme apologized. "We're kind of… cold."

Mrs. Weasley only shook her hand. Imagine one of them lying beside you each night… Nope, don't think about it, don't think about it.

"Whoa, let me feel," George said idiotically. Emmett held out his arm, amused and George felt his arm. "Wicked," he said.

"Well if we're done here, George, Lily, and I have to go plan our next prank on Ronny."

Mrs. Weasley glared at them while Ron said, "Oi! I'm right here!"

"Er, he meant Bill," George said lamely. I though got excited at the thought of a new prank and my hair turned purple.

"Don't be so excited, Lily," Ron yelled at me. "Honestly Harry, can't you control your sister?"

"Sorry, no, she's pretty unstoppable when it comes to her pranks, trust me," Harry replied, probably thinking back to the times he had tried to stop me.

"Come on, let's—" Fred started to say but I cut him off.

"We'll be walking," I informed him.

"Aw Lily Pad, don't be so—" Fred said but I cut him off.

"Don't be so what?"

"Nothing," he muttered as he walked away and towards his room. I smiled proudly and followed him as did George.

We discussed pranks, one of our most common subjects, for a while until it was time for dinner. The order wasn't here today so we didn't have to wait until the end of a meeting. Fred disapparated me downstairs to the kitchen and I continued to yell at him.

"Will you _ever _stop doing that to me?"

"No," he answered simply and I groaned and sank down into my usual chair. Fred sat down next to me with a smirk on his face and Harry sat down on my other side. The vampires sat on the other side of the table, even though they didn't eat. Edward was directly across from me. How lovely.

Edward kept looking at me, not bothering to even hide it, and eventually he said, "Why can't I read your mind?"

I shrugged my shoulders and Fred and George said, "Whoa! You can read minds?"

"Yeah, I can read everybody's except for her," he said pointing to me.

"What am I thinking about right now?" Fred challenged.

"You're still thinking about pulling a prank on him," Edward said and pointed to Ron.

"Fred Weasley," Mrs. Weasley yelled from in the kitchen, hearing everything that was said.

"I'm not _really_ going to prank him mum, I was just _thinking _about it," Fred hopelessly explained to her.

"I'll believe that when I see it," Mrs. Weasley said. "Anyway, you two can come over here and help carry this stuff to the table, _without magic_."

"But mum," George protested. "Using magic saves an awful lot of time."

"Last time you nearly chopped Sirius's hand off!"

"I told him I was sorry," Fred said.

"No magic," she told them both sternly. They groaned and went to get the food. They came back with no flying knives almost piercing my Godfather's hands.

"So, tell us more about yourselves," Carlisle insisted as we put food onto our plates. I went first.

"Well I'm really nice and kind and lovable," I started to say but George and Fred was laughing so loudly they interrupted what I was saying. "HEY! I'm serious!"

"No, Lily, I'm Sirius," Sirius joked. At this the entire table was now laughing with the exception of Rosalie and Edward. You would think Edward would be a bit more cheerful now that I was out of his life.

Then, we stopped laughing so much and began to eat. Then you could hear Hermione say, "Ronald! Stop eating so much!" This is like a daily thing for them. I just rolled my eyes at them.

"Hey Lily," Fred poked me with his fork. I looked over to him.

"_What _Fred?"

"Well you are being really quiet and you're not usually really quiet," he explained to me in somewhat of a rush.

"So you decided to poke me with your fork?" He nodded. "You do realize that you're supposed to use those to eat with, right?"

"Yes, you use them to eat and poke certain metemorphmagi," he told me.

"Okay, okay, go on and go poke Tonks then!"

"I meant you," Fred said. I just rolled my eyes. "You know, you've kept your eyes the same color for a while now."

"You're right, they have, and I should change them."

"But they're pretty this way!"

"They're pretty this way?"

"Um… yeah… they're like all natural and stuff right? I… like your eyes…"

"Thanks, Fred," I said. "It's nice that you like my eyes… I think I'll change them for now though."

"Hey you should make them purple," Ginny piped up from the other side of Hermione, who was next to Ron who was on the other side of Harry. "Those ones are really pretty."

"Alright," I said and focused on my eyes and I changed them to purple. I looked to Ginny. "Are they nice?"

"They're great," she told me and I went back to eating. The Cullen children were observing all of us while Carlisle and Esme were conversing with the adults.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Harry asked the Cullens.

"We don't eat," Edward told him.

"Oh," was all he said and went back to eating his own food. After a few more moments Sirius cleared his throat.

"As you know, the Cullens will be protecting you two," he said and looked to Harry and I.

"We _don't _need protected," we said. I hated the thought of being protected by them. My hair turned red.

"Oh for goodness sake Lily," Mrs. Weasley said. "Calm down your hair!" I sighed and changed my head back to the normal red, like my mom and the Weasley's.

"With Voldemort on the loose you never know," Sirius said. "But since they don't know magic and will be posing as transfer students from America we need to teach them magic so we will all help tomorrow with that. Therefore, there will be no more war on the house."

Fred and George both cheered.

"Be quiet, you two," Mrs. Weasley said to them.

"But this is a time to celebrate," George said.

"Oh, be quiet, George," Mrs. Weasley said. "I think it's about time for bed."

All of us groaned but she sent us off to bed. I got into my pajamas once in my shared room with Hermione and Ginny and I got into bed. Sleep came quickly, but so did the nightmares.

_"Did you know I was so upset tonight because I thought I got rid of you but it turns out I didn't," Edward said. "I wanted to leave you!"_

_ "No! No! Don't leave me!"_

_ "I'll have to find another way now," he said, contemplating. _

_ "No! No!" _

_ "Come on, wake up!"_

_ "No!"_

_ "I know how to wake you up," Edward said. "_Aguamenti_!"_

I was splashed with water and suddenly woke up. I was in my dark room again with Fred, George, Harry, Ginny, and Hermione hovering above me.

"What'd you do that for?" I asked angrily as I wrung out my red, wet hair.

"You weren't waking up," Fred shrugged as he put his wand back into his pocket.

"Why did you even need to wake me up?"

"You were having a nightmare," Harry said.

"Well I think I knew that," I said frustrated.

"And you still didn't want to wake up?" Ginny asked me.

"Well once I go to sleep again I'm just going to have more nightmares," I told them.

"What're your nightmares about?" Fred asked me.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"You can't have a nightmare about nothing," George reasoned.

"Well maybe then I just don't want to tell you," I snapped.

"You've been having these nightmares since you got here," Hermione said worriedly.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"If you were fine you wouldn't be having nightmares," Fred said.

"Whatever," I said not wanting to talk about it. "I'm going to bed again."

"But you'll have your nightmares again," Ginny worried.

"I'll be fi—" I said but was cut off.

"Scoot over," Fred ordered.

"Why?"

"Just do it," he ordered. I did so and he plopped down right beside me.

"What are you doing?"

"I keep the bad dreams away," he winked at me. "It's all good now," he told the others. "You can go! I got this!"

They all just looked at him for a while, sighed, and went their different ways. That night while Fred laid next to me the nightmares went away temporarily. But it was only temporary because I was now practically living my nightmares, and I wanted to scream just as much then.

**Review?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Waiting for the End- Chapter Five**

When I awoke in a finally nightmare-less sleep, it was in Fred's arms, who was holding me. It could have possibly been peaceful if it was not for that of Mrs. Weasley.

"Fred Weasley! Lily Potter! _What _do you think you are doing?" Mrs. Weasley yelled, startling us both. I think Fred fell off the bed and he looked up to his mother. It must have been much scarier looking to her from down there.

"Lily was having her nightmares, Mum," Fred said, desperately trying to explain the situation to his mother. "I was only trying to help make them go away!"

Mrs. Weasley looked from me to Fred, trying to decipher whether or not it was the truth or a lie. She sighed, hopefully deciding it was the truth, and she must have heard my screams though. According to them, my screams are heard throughout the house.

"Fine," she sighed and walked away. "Breakfast is ready."

"Hey! I've never got off this easy before," Fred said cheerily.

"I'm glad my nightmares can do something right," I muttered.

He just smiled. "Let's just go down to eat," he said. "By the way, your hair looks like a haystack."

"Gee, thanks, that's exactly what I want to hear," I said sarcastically.

"It's not that bad," he said. "I kind of like it."

On the outside, I rolled my eyes but on the inside I couldn't help but think about that other time someone said that. "I'm not apparating this early in the morning," I informed him as I walked out the door and down the old, wooden steps. I tiptoed through the hall and down into the kitchen. I opened the door and went in and there was a chorus of, "Hi Lily," throughout the room.

"Hello," I said tiredly and I sat down. Mrs. Weasley hurried to put some scrambled eggs and bacon onto my plate. I thanked her and ate. Really, having nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night, and your best friend deciding to lie down with you to make the nightmares go away really makes you hungry.

Fred joined the kitchen just a bit after I arrived, "Where are the vamps?" he asked casually.

"They're in the library learning about wizards. They can apparently learn amazingly fast," Mrs. Weasley told his son, there were no mentions of the earlier encounter.

"Can they do magic?" I asked as I ate some more eggs, quickly, but not as fast as Ron.

"According to Dumbledore he thinks they can, but we'll find out soon enough anyway," Mrs. Weasley said.

"So they have wands and everything as well?" Ginny asked.

"Yes, got them only a few days earlier," Mrs. Weasley answered. Once everyone finished up their food we all helped clean up and went to the library, were we found seven vampires flipping through pages of books.

"Are you ready then?" Mrs. Weasley asked the vampires. They nodded their heads easily.

We started them off simple on first year magic, now currently on Wingardium Leviosa. Although Hermione, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and I could not demonstrate we could help in other ways. Hermione was now with Emmett, correcting him on the pronunciation.

"Stop! You are going to take somebody's eye out. It's Wingardium Levi-O-saw, not Leviosaaa," she corrected.

"You mean there's really a difference on how you say it?"

"Yes, there is, now try again," Hermione instructed. This time, he had got it right. I was the lucky girl who got to help out Edward.

"Like Hermione said, it's Levi-O-saw and not Leviosaaa," I told him.

"If you're so great then why don't you do it?"

"I can't, students aren't allowed to use magic outside of school until they're of age," I explained bitingly.

"And you've already broken that rule once this year, haven't you Lily?" said Fred.

"Oh, shut it, Fred," I yelled at him from across the room. I looked to Edward, "Go on, try it again. We don't have seven years to catch you up!"

He tried again and failed. "Haven't got it yet? That's a pity. I guess Mr. Perfect isn't perfect after all." I said, very Snape-like.

"Oh, come on," Mrs. Weasley said. "Time for lunch." She got out of the room and I jumped up to follow her, wanting to get as far away from Edward as possible.

"I don't think that girl with the rainbow hair likes me," I heard Edward say to most likely another of the Cullens. He hasn't the faintest idea though how much I did like him at one point.

Fred and George flanked me on the way down to the kitchen. I couldn't believe that they didn't grab my arm and apparate me down. But maybe they heard what Edward said and just walked with me. It doesn't matter. I don't particularly want to apparate anywhere at the moment, or any moment actually.

I sat down at the table and Fred and George sat on either side of me. Mrs. Weasley made sandwiches and we all gobbled through those, except for the Cullen's who looked to us in complete disgust.

I felt something slimy hit the side of my face. I looked over to my right to find Fred with a mischievous grin. I felt my face and pulled off a red slice of tomato. I just looked at him and flicked it back at him. Then he took it and flung it back at me. It was back and forward as we both ignored the rest of our sandwiches. Our little fight was making me happy and I was smiling and giggling. My hair turned golden in my glee and we flicked the tomato to and fro for the longest time until.

"Lily! Fred! Stop that right this instant!" cried Mrs. Weasley. "You are not five. You do not play with your food."

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," I said the same time Fred said. "Yes, Mum." But we were both smiling quite a lot and giggling quietly. We finished the rest of the sandwiches and we headed up to train the Cullen's some more.

I was thankfully paired with Alice this time. That was slightly better but not completely. It wasn't completely better because she made me think of before. She made me think of how happy I was before.

You may think that some things are painless. But that's not true, that's what I found out. When you're happy, it feels the best. You would never think that that moment would cause pain. But when it's gone you long for it back, wish for it back, need it back, but it will never come back and that is pain.

Being with Alice was comforting but it was like something was on the tip of your tongue. It was there, but not completely. Alice, hopefully, had no idea who I was. She was just hanging out with me. But then again, she probably didn't even have any idea who I was in the beginning. I was not Bella. I was me. I'm not like Bella, she's not me, and she's just part of my imagination, my memories. It was just never really me. And then, that hurt more. It hurts when people love you for someone you aren't.

We instructed them all about our lessons. We got through a lot, they really were quick learners. I found out what years they would all be in too. Alice and Emmett were going to be in my year. Jasper and Rosalie would be in sixth year while Edward would be in seventh year. I was really quite glad that I wouldn't have to deal with Emmett. I could do with Alice and Emmett, couldn't I?

After a while of teaching the vamps how to do magic Mrs. Weasley decided it was time we deserved a break. I have to say that was one of the best parts of the day. Fred and George went up to their room to work on a 'Surprise Product' which I was not allowed to be included in. So while Ginny and Hermione went to join Harry and Ron in their room I hung back in the girls' room. I opened my trunk and brought out something I've been dying to listen to since I got here. It was my iPod.

An iPod was something I acquired while in the land of Muggles. It played music and was really cool, Edward got it for me. I really didn't want to think about that part of the entire thing though. I got music for it as well.

I put the earphones into my ears and turned the volume up high. I hit shuffle and danced around to the first song that came up: Love Drunk by Boys Like Girls

"_Top down in the summer sun. The day we met was like a hit and run and I still taste it on my tongue…"_

I sang to the song, hopefully quietly, and danced around the room. I twirled and sang and kind of had a blast.

"_I used to be love drunk, but now I'm hung over. I'd love you forever, forever is over…"_

I was then deeply in a guitar solo and I didn't notice the door creek open. There was a red-haired twin there, only one, who was chuckling in the doorway.

"_Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…"_

I finally realized he was there when he coughed kind of obnoxiously. I stopped, blushed just a bit, and then glared. "You just interrupted my awesome air guitar moment."

"Sorry," he said, not meaning it whatsoever and walking into the room. He took the device from my hands and examined it. "What is this?"

"It's called an iPod, I got one when I was with the American Muggles."

"What does it do?" He asked, amazed, as his fingers traced the circle. He jumped when the screen lit up.

"It plays music," I explained. "Here," I said and gave him and earplug and he listened to the next song. He got his first taste of muggle music, and it was Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. I liked that song so I took an earphone and listened as well.

"_I hold on so nervously to me and my drink. I wish it was cooling me…"_

He looked over to me and said, "You're a really good singer."

I blushed again. Why do I keep doing that? It must be an after-affect of being Bella Swan for so long. I should stop doing that, I don't like it. "I'm not really that good."

He just ignored that comment and listened to the rest of the song. "Cool," he said once it was over. "But George and I want you to test out a new product for us."

I sighed. Those words were never a good thing, but being best friends with the twins I felt that I had too. "Okay."

I went upstairs with him, surprisingly no apparating, and George was there waiting. "What took you so long? We're you snogging or something?" He then had a mischievous smile while the two of us blushed.

Fred shook his head, his hair shaking along with it. "I found her dancing, but anyway, the sweet, George?"

"The sweet," George said and held out an orange-colored sweet.

"You want me to eat that?"

"No, we want you to shove it up your nose," said Fred.

I just ignored Fred, as I always did when he would say something like that and ate the sweet. I didn't feel the effect immediately but once I took a good look at myself I could surely see it.

"You changed my skin… orange?"

"Yep, I figured we would need something to prank our metemorphmagus friends, where it doesn't matter whether or not you change their hair."

"You do realize that I can change my entire body, skin color included, it's not just my hair." As I said that I changed my skin back to a normal tone.

"Shit," they both swore in unison.

"We knew you seemed too calm," Fred muttered.

"Don't worry Metemorph, we'll find a way to prank you someday," George said.

"I'm looking forward to seeing that," I said.

**xXx**

Recently, going to bed was not something I always wanted to do. I mean, it would make sense; these nightmares aren't really the best. But I would die without sleep so I end up sleeping anyway, only to have someone shake me awake yet again.

After that long day, I was hoping that by some miracle I would sleep well, but of course, that couldn't happen. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was sucked down into a dream that I didn't particularly enjoy.

_Edward walked out into the field where many of our days had been spent. The field that had slowly turned into 'Our Field.' He walked out and met me, "Bella," he said. _

_ "Edward," I said as well. _

_ "I need to get rid of you. I don't love you anymore. You're a _freak_. I don't know why I dated anyone like you in the first place," he scoffed. _

_ "No, please," I began to beg but he turned away. _

_ "You don't love me anymore, either. You love him," he scoffed and suddenly there was another person there. It was Fred. _

_ "He's just my best friend," I said._

_ "If he's just your best friend we'll see what happens when I do this," Edward said quite sadistically. Suddenly he sprang and attacked the red head in our presence. _

_ "No," I screamed. "Stop it!" But my yells did nothing. It was like trying to communicate under water. Yelling, talking, and everything coming out in weird, gargling noises no matter how hard you try. _

_ Fred was screaming too. But he was getting attacked by a vampire. Edward popped up, his eyes blood red and looked to me. He licked his lips and laughed evilly over Fred's limp body while I screamed. _

_ Suddenly, Fred said, "Wake _up_, Lily!"_

I woke up to see the usual people around me, along with a few vampires. Thankfully, it was just Alice and Emmett and no one who bothered me too much.

"Thank God, Lily," Fred said. "That's the worse it's been yet!"

"This is usual?" Alice asked her voice small.

Hermione nodded. "I think that has been the loudest she's been in a while though."

"What are these dreams about?" Emmett asked.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"We have to do something about these dreams," Fred announced. "I'm telling my mum in the morning." The others murmured their agreement while I paled. If he told her then I'd have to tell someone what they were about and I just wasn't ready to do that yet.

** Next chapter is the hearing! And you guys are totally awesome! Please review! :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Six**

Fred did tell his mum. It gave me a sick kind of feeling when he did too. She talked to the Order about it, and gave me worried glances whenever I walked by. Dumbledore said he would take care of it once school started.

August twelfth came sooner than I had wanted and I had a sick feeling knowing what was going to go on today. Harry was nervous as well, but I was even possibly more nervous than Harry, and I had reason. I wouldn't be so nervous if it wasn't for the things George, Fred, and I heard over the extendable ears. They were saying how they fear I may have less of a chance of going back to Hogwarts because I was in America longer than expected, and I didn't have a witness.

I walked down the stairs after getting ready in a blouse and skirt. I felt fairly sick and like I wanted to puke. I walked down to the kitchen, to see Harry nervous and pale as well. Mrs. Weasley worried over the two of us. Along with them Mr. Weasley, Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks occupied the kitchen.

"What do you want, Harry, Lily?" Mrs. Weasley called after a few 'morning's have been said. "Porridge? Muffins? Kippers? Bacons and Eggs? Toast?"

"Just—just toast, thanks," Harry said while I said, "Muffins, please."

Lupin glanced to Harry and I and then to Tonks. "What were you saying about Srimgeour?"

"Oh… yeah… well, we need to be a bit more careful, he's been asking Kingsley and me funny questions…"

They were discussing order stuff, and how Mr. Weasley would take over Tonk's shift because she was much too tired too.

Mr. Weasley was wearing Muggle clothes instead of robes. He turned to Tonks to Harry and I. "How are you two feeling?"

We both shrugged.

"It'll all be over soon. In a few hours' time you'll be cleared," he said, supportive. We both said nothing.

"Lily, could you try to change your hair?" Tonks said. "I don't know how well they will take to green…"

I then realized how incredibly curly and green my hair had become. My hair tended to curl when I was stressing. I focused on changing my hair blonde, because that is just how I was feeling today.

"The hearings on my floor, in Amelia Bone's office. She's Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and she's the one who'll be questioning you." Mr. Weasley said to both of us.

"Amelia Bones is okay. She's fair, she'll hear you out." We both nodded, but didn't speak.

"Don't lose your temper," Sirius warned us. "Be polite and stick to the facts. And Lily, you know the story." I nodded.

"The law's on your side," Lupin said. "Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic in life-threatening situations."

Mrs. Weasley was attacking Harry's crazy hair with a wet comb. "Does it ever lay flat?" She wondered to herself. Harry shook his head though. Mr. Weasley looked to his wrist and checked the time.

"I think we'll go now. We're a bit early, but I think you'll be better off there than hanging around here," Mr. Weasley said.

"Okay," Harry said as he dropped his toast and got to his feet. I stood up, but kept my muffin with me. I like muffins.

"You'll be alright Harry," Tonks said patting his arm. "And you too, Lily," she added.

"Good luck," Lupin said softly. "I'm sure it will be fine."

"And if it's not," Sirius said grimly, "I'll see to Amelia Bones for you too."

We both smiled a bit, weakly. Mrs. Weasley hugged Harry, and then me, and the two of us, squished together in a group hug. "We've all got our fingers crossed," she said

"Right," Harry said. "Well… see you later then."

We followed Mr. Weasley upstairs and along the hall. Sirius's mum was grunting in her sleep as Mr. Weasley unbolted the door and led us out into the cold morning.

"You don't normally walk to work, do you?" Harry asked him as we set off along the square. I stayed quiet, just listening in, feeling like if I was going to talk I would puke instead.

"No, I usually apparate," said Mr. Weasley. "But obviously, you can't, and I think it's best we arrive in a thoroughly non-magical fashion… makes a better impression, given what you're being disciplined for."

When we made it to the Underground, Muggles were everywhere, unlike the deserted streets they previously were in. Mr. Weasley looked like a child given an early Christmas seeing the Muggles go along their daily life.

"Simply fabulous," he muttered in amazement when he saw the automatic ticket machines. "Wonderfully ingenious."

"They're out of order," Harry told Mr. Weasley as he pointed to the sign.

"Yes, but even so…" Mr. Weasley said in wonder.

They bought the tickets from a half-awake guard instead of the amusing machines and five minutes later we were boarding a train that rattled us off to the centre of London. Mr. Weasley kept looking anxiously at the maps.

"Four stops… three stops left now… two stops to go…" We got off the station in the very heart and soul of London… or perhaps stomach. That's more of a centre of the entire body.

We went up the escalator, through the ticket barrier and entered a large street lined with buildings and already trafficked heavily.

"Where are we?" asked Mr. Weasley blankly. "Ah yes, this way, Lily, Harry," Mr. Weasley said as he took a look at a map.

"Sorry," he said to us. "But I never come by train and it all looks rather different from a Muggle perspective. As a matter of fact I've never even used the visitor's entrance before."

We walked on and on and the buildings began to shrink around us. When we came to the destination there was nothing more than a few offices, a pub, and a smelly dumpster.

"Here we are," Mr. Weasley said quite brightly, especially for nearly six in the morning. "After you, Lily," he said and I entered first. I entered in a telephone box, which is confusing. Who do we need to call exactly? And does Mr. Weasley even know how to use a telephone?

It looked broken as well. Mr. Weasley reached for the receiver though nonetheless and I was squished against the wall of the box. "Mr. Weasley, I think this may be out of order too," Harry said and spoke my thoughts.

"No, no, I'm sure it's fine," said Mr. Weasley and I gave him an odd look. Does he know what he's talking about? It sure looks broken to me. He held the receiver above his head and looked at the dial.

"Let's see," he said, talking to himself. "Six… two… four… and another four… and another two…" The dial whirled right back into place and a smooth voice of a woman filled the box.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business," it said, as though the imaginary person was squished in the box with them. She wasn't though, and she was lucky, because there wasn't much room to move, or breathe.

"Er…" said Mr. Weasley, uncertain if he was to talk into the receiver. "Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, here to escort Harry Potter and Isabella Potter, who has been asked to attend a disciplinary hearing."

"Thank you," said the voice. "Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."

With a click and a rattle two badges slid down the chute where returned coins were meant to be. Harry picked up one, and handed me the other. I held in my hand a square, silver badge that said _Isabella Potter, Disciplinary Hearing_, on it. I pinned it to my shirt, as did Harry, and the voice yet again filled the box.

"Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.

The floor was now sinking slowly into the ground and the pavement rose past the windows of the telephone bow until darkness was above us. After about a minute, or possibly more, light flooded the floor rose up to our bodies and I blinked rapidly since my eyes were watering.

"The Ministry of Magic wished you a pleasant day," said the woman. The door sprang open and I stepped out first, very, very thankful to be out of the dreadful telephone box. Harry's mouth had fallen open by the sight of the Ministry building. It was quite wonderful, I have got to admit.

"This way," Mr. Weasley said. They made their way through the ministry members, there were a lot, and working at the ministry is like, the main wizarding job, isn't it?

There were people selling the Daily Prophet in the corners. There was a fountain littered with Knuts and Sickles. The sign on it said_ 'All proceeds from the Fountain of Magical Brethren will be given to St. Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries'._ That made me want to donate immediately, I just can't help but not when it comes to those kinds of things. Animals being mistreated, kids in Africa, anything, cancer, whatever, I wanted to give. It made me feel good.

We went over so that the wizard could check our wands. He didn't realize who Harry was until the end. More people notice him than they notice me. It may be because I am a metemorphmagus and I don't have a scar. I'm not ever The-Child-Who-Lived. I'm just that twin of The-Boy-Who-Lived. It's not a very good title. I'm 'His Twin' it's not even hyphenated.

We followed Mr. Weasley through the halls. It was sooner than I hoped when I found myself going into the courtroom, after Harry's, which I had been pacing the halls the entire time for that. It was then my turn and I stepped inside.

When I came into the courtroom a cold voice of a male rang throughout. "Take your seat," it said. There was a chair in the center of the room, with chains on it. It scared me; I trembled as I sat down into in cautiously, as if it would bite me.

Once I was sat in the chair I looked up to the people above me. There had to be about fifty people in the plum robes and a silver W. Fudge was in the center of them all, with an ugly woman close to him. There was something about her that was especially evil, even behind all the pink she had under her robes.

"The accused being present let us begin. Are you ready?"

I gulped, not ready at all, but the person he was asking said, "Yes sir." It was quite eager and it was none other than Percy Weasley.

"Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August," said Fudge as Percy toke notes hurriedly. "Into offenses committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Isabella Lily Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

"Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley—"

"Witness to the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," said Dumbledore, coming into my vision from my side. When did he get here?

He sat down into an armchair beside me that I hadn't realized was there until now. "Now, the charges," Fudge had said, doing his best to ignore Dumbledore. After taking a deep breath he read off the charges.

"You are Isabella Lily Potter, if number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" Fudge asked, glaring at me over the parchment. Wasn't he just a pocketful of sunshine?

I nodded, "Yes."

"You received an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago, did you not?"

"That was actually a house—"

"And yet you conjured a Patronus on the night of the thirty-first of July?"

"Yes, but—"

"Knowing that you are not permitted to use magic outside school while you are under the age of seventeen?"

"Yes, but," I said but they wouldn't let me get anything out.

It was not Fudge who cut her off this time though. "You produced a full Patronus?"

"Yes, I did," I said. Isn't this the entire reason I was here? Shouldn't they know that?

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"Yes, I mean, wait, what is that?"

"It was more than vapor or smoke?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's a frog."

"And how long have you known how to do this?"

"Since third year when the—"

"Also very impressive," the woman said, Madam Bones, "a true Patronus. You and your brother are quite talented."

"Thank you," I said. "Now why did you produce said Patronus?"

"There were dementors," I said, trying not to sound as if I was making them sound dumb. "A dementor attacked me."

"Why would a dementor come after you? The chances that a dementor came after your brother, small, the possibility that it came after both of you, impossible." Fudge said, not believing me whatsoever.

"Dementors in America?" Madam Bones, asked, perplexed.

"That brings up another interesting point," Fudge said. "The exchange program you did should have had you back by June twenty-first but in July thirty-first you were still in America. Why is that, now?"

"I made some friends in America and my aunt and uncle agreed to let me stay there to celebrate my birthday with them," I said, telling them the practiced lie. Fudge gave me a look but Madam Bones seemed to believe me on that one.

"Very interesting," Fudge said.

Dumbledore then cleared his throat, attention turning to him, "As with Harry, I believe we have a right, to present witnesses with our case." Witness? There were no witnesses. That's what made this plan so brilliant, whoever planned it.

"Weasley, go," Fudge ordered and Percy scurried off and out the doors, bringing with him Charlie Swan. Charlie sat in another chair that had been set up, much like Dumbledore's.

"Full name?"

"Charlie Swan," he answered his voice somewhat gruff.

"And who are you?"

"A squib living in a residence of Forks, Washington, America, close to where Isabella was staying with friends," Charlie answered. So I guess I didn't stay with him.

"And what did it feel like when the dementors came?" questioned Madam Bones. "Could you please explain?"

"It had gone cold, real cold. The happiness felt like it was all gone. I was outside at the time and I could see black cloak-like figures floating above me, going quickly to the forest, where Isabella was." Madam Bones nodded.

"That seems like an appropriate observation," she said while few others murmured in agreement and nodded their heads. I still received cold glares though from Fudge, that Umbridge woman, and Percy Weasley.

"That's what you saw?" Fudge asked and Charlie nodded. "You may go." He got off his chair and left the courtroom. I wish I was him. Right now, all I want is to get out of here.

"That was accurate," Madam Bones said once he left and Fudge agreed, although he didn't look like he wanted too.

"So then we agree that under Claus Seven, Isabella is innocent due to her being in a life-threatening situation?" Dumbledore asked.

"I highly doubt—" Fudge began to say but Dumbledore interrupted him.

"You've heard from a witness and you also believed Harry's story, why not Isabella?" Harry got off free? Thank God, I hope I still have a chance as well…

Fudge sighed and Madam Bone's said, "Those in favor of clearing the witness of all charges?"

Hands were going in the air; it had to be more than half. Yes! I would attempt to count but she spoke again, the hands going down.

"And those in favor of conviction?" There were few hands that went in the air; those that did though included Fudge and the pink-toad Umbridge woman.

Fudge looked around and sighed, "Cleared of all charges." Dumbledore cleared up the chairs with a flick of his wand and turned his back. He left, not even saying a word to me.

**Thank you, thank you, and thank you for all the reviews! This chapter might have been kind of boring, but it was important! Keep the reviews coming? :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Seven**

It was finally time to go back to Hogwarts. I'm not sure if I have ever been happier in all my life. I was excited, my hair was purple, and there was a slight skip to my step where ever I went. I was standing in the hall with Ginny.

I haven't talked to Fred and George once today, and that was odd. We usually had a prank planned by now. I would talk to them, but I suppose I'd see him in a bit.

"How's Mikey," I teased her. She blushed like only a Weasley can blush.

"He's fine," Ginny said.

Ron was coming up the steps and ran into us. "You better get downstairs, Mum's going mad," he warned and went into his and Harry's room. We turned around and went towards the kitchen; we had already put our trunks down there last night to save us the hassle this morning.

We were slowly walking down the hallway when I felt an impact on the back of my head. I'm not sure what it was but it made me fall downwards, I was already about to go down the first flight of steps. I kept tumbling. I don't know how long and my vision kept going in and out. I couldn't pay attention.

The last thing I heard was screaming. "COULD HAVE DONE THEM A SERIOUS INJURY YOU IDIOTS!"

**xXx**

I awoke, (when had I been sleeping?) in Fred's arms. How did I get here? Why was I here? "Wha?" I tried to sit up, but Fred wasn't letting me do that. He noticed that I was awake now though and got attention immediately. You know attention of anyone around us. We were in muggle London. Why were we here again?

"Lupin! She's awake!" he said joyfully, causing multiple amounts of heads turn our way.

"What happened?" I asked as I rubbed my head, I had a really bad headache, one of the worst ever. It felt like it was inside my head and outside at the same time.

"Fred and George bewitched their trunks to go down the stairs themselves and they hit you and Ginny. You've been knocked out for the last half hour," Lupin explained.

"_Of course_ they did," I said, annoyed. "Can I come down now?"

"No," Lupin said. His answer annoyed me. Fred was going to drop me. Fred was so going to drop me. "You have to stay off your feet for ten minutes at least. You could pass out again." I grumbled a bit but I really couldn't do anything about it.

"Where are we going?" I asked, because really I had no idea.

"Kings Cross Station," George said, who was standing next to Fred. Ginny was on the other side. I nodded my head; today was September the first, wasn't it?

Once we made it to the station I asked, "Can I be set down now?"

Lupin chuckled. "Sure thing, Lily, unless you're comfortable there." He smirked at us. I was so not comfortable here… was I?

"I'm good," I said as I hopped down from Fred's arms. Not that I wasn't particularly comfy but I surely wasn't going to admit that.

We ran into the barrier and ended up at the familiar Platform Nine and Three Quarters. We found Mrs. Weasley and the others. Moody was there and said to Lupin in that growling voice of his, "No trouble?"

"Nothing," Lupin said.

Mrs. Weasley hugged me when she saw me. "Oh, Lily, I'm so glad you're up again."

"I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley," I said to her as she released me from her hug.

"Well, look after yourselves," Lupin said and shook all of their hands.

"Yeah, keep your head down and your eyes peeled," said Moody as he shook hands as well. "And don't forget, all of you—careful what you put into writing. If in doubt, don't put it in a letter at all."

"It's been great meeting all of you," Tonks said cheerfully. She hugged Hermione, Ginny, and I. "We'll see you soon I expect."

The warning whistle sounded and we hurried to get onto the train. We stood around a bit and waved to the people we were leaving behind as the train went onward. Once they were out of sight Fred clapped his hands together and said, "Well, can't stand around chatting all day, we've got business to discuss with Lee. See you later."

"You coming Lily?" George asked.

"Of course," I said and disappeared down through the corridors with them. We walked down until we found Lee, he was alone and he smiled when he saw us.

"Hey Fred and George!" He said and smiled brightly at the twins. He saw me and said, "Hi, Lily! How was America?"

"It was great," I said sweetly with a fake smile plastered onto my face. No one needed to know, because if I told a soul, someone would find out. I could not let that happen.

He smiled and then looked to the twins."So what have we got?" he asked them.

"Well," George began to say when a door slammed open. We all turned our heads to see Miss Rosalie Hale standing there, looking displeased.

"You mind if I join?" she asked scathingly. Lee Jordan didn't seem to notice a thing, only her inhuman beauty. His mouth was slightly ajar.

"I don't care," he said, lightly, amazed she rolled her eyes and sat down, next to me, without much enthusiasm. I pretty much knew this was a translation for: I was sent to watch you, but trust me, I didn't want too.

The rest of the train ride was pretty much wasted as Lee looked up to Rosalie (literally and figuratively) like she was an angel. He asked her all sorts of questions. Where was she from? Is she a transfer student? Does she have any sisters? Her hair is really pretty…

George, Fred, and I, who were very much used to Rosalie and her horrid behavior and did our best to ignore her, ignored Lee, who would come around eventually, and we ended up playing Exploding Snap.

Fred and George didn't get as much business done with Lee as they hoped, because of Rosalie or any business at all really. I could tell it disappointed them but there wasn't much they could get done now.

The train came to a halt when we got to the station, and leaving our trunks behind, and my head still slightly throbbing, we went to the carriages. As much as Lee wanted Rosalie to ride with us she couldn't because she had to go on the first year boats.

Ha, have fun Blondie…

Lee, George, Fred, and I all gathered into a carriage. It carried itself to Hogwarts and they chatted aimlessly. Lee still looked disappointed that Rosalie couldn't come with us, but I was glad she couldn't!

I had a feeling that over the next couple of days I would have to deal with more vampires than I will want, and that is not something I look forward too.

Once the carriages found their way to the castle we hopped out of them and talked until we found ourselves in the Great Hall, taking seats at the Gryffindor Table and waiting anxiously for the First Years to come.

I scanned the staff table and noticed an overly large woman wearing too much pink. I recognized her. She was the woman from my Hearing. "See that lady," I said pointing to the toad. "She was at my hearing. She was against me coming back."

"I don't like her," Fred and George said immediately and at the same time, which they had a weird way of doing that Harry and I didn't do often. It was just so Fred and George, and not really the fact that they were twins. I wonder if they ever practiced when they were younger or if it was just instinctual.

"Hagrid isn't here either," Lee said and pointed to Hagrid's empty seat.

Before anyone had time to say anything Professor McGonnagall led a line of first years and five teenagers into the Great Hall. Everything was silent as she placed a stool in front with an old hat on it.

The hat opened the brim of its mouth and began to sing a lengthy tune.

_In times of old when I was new_

_And Hogwarts barely started _

_The founders of our noble school_

_Thought never to be parted;_

_United by a common goal,_

_They had a selfsame yearning,_

_To make the world's best magic school_

_And pass along their learning._

"_Together we will build and teach!"_

_The four good friends decided_

_And never did they dream that they_

_Might someday be divided,_

_For were there such friends anywhere_

_As Slytherin and Gryffindor?_

_Unless it was the second pair_

_Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?_

_So how could it have gone so wrong?_

_How could such good friendship fail?_

_Why, I was there and so can tell_

_The whole sad, sorry tale_

_Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those_

_Whose ancestry is purest."_

_Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach just those whose _

_Intelligence is surest."_

_Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those_

_With brave deeds to their name."_

_Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot_

_And treat them just the same."_

_These differences caused little strife_

_When first they came to light, _

_For each of the four founders had_

_A House in which they might_

_Take only those they wanted, so, _

_For instance, Slytherin,_

_Took only pure-blood wizards_

_Of great cunning, just like him,_

_And only those of sharpest mind_

_Were taught by Ravenclaw_

_While the bravest and the boldest_

_Went to daring Gryffindor._

_Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest, _

_And taught them all she knew,_

_Thus the Houses and their founders_

_Retained friendships firm and true. _

_So Hogwarts worked in harmony_

_For several happy years,_

_But then discord crept among us_

_Feeding on our faults and fears._

_The Houses that, like pillars four,_

_Had once help up our school,_

_Now turned upon each other and, _

_Divided, sought to rule._

_And for a while it seemed the school_

_Must meet an early end,_

_What with dueling and fighting_

_And the clash of friend on friend_

_And at last there came a morning_

_When old Slytherin departed_

_And though the fighting then died out_

_He left us quite downhearted._

_And never since the founders four_

_Were whittled down to three_

_Have the Houses been united_

_As they once were meant to be._

_And now the Sorting Hat is here_

_And you all know the score:_

_I sort you into Houses_

_Because that is what I'm for,_

_But this year I'll go further,_

_Listen closely to my song:_

_Though condemned I am to split you_

_Still I worry that it's wrong,_

_Though I must fulfill my duty_

_And must quarter every year_

_Still I wonder whether sorting_

_May not bring the end I fear._

_Oh, know the perils, read the signs,_

_The warning history shows,_

_For our Hogwarts is in danger_

_From external, deadly foes_

_And we must unite inside her_

_Or we'll crumble from within_

_I have told you, I have warned you…_

_Let the Sorting now begin. _

That was most definitely the longest sorting song I had ever heard. Before Professor McGonagall sorted the first years, she went for the vampires.

"We have new transfer students from America this year. I expect all of you to treat them with respect. I will call your name and you will come sit on the stool and put on the hat.

"Cullen, Alice," Professor McGonagall called. Alice danced, yes danced, across the stage gracefully and sat on the stool, her legs dangling from it. The hat was lowered onto her head and soon enough it called out, "Gryffindor!"

Alice a Gryffindor, okay, I think I might be able to deal with that.

"Cullen, Edward," Professor called next and I wrinkled my nose up in disgust. Ugh. Please don't be Gryffindor. Please don't be Gryffindor.

The hat called out, much to my pleasure, "RAVENCLAW!"

Phew.

"Cullen, Emmett," was called next and he became a Gryffindor as well. I didn't mind him. He was okay. Alice and Emmett never did anything to harm me.

"Hale, Jasper," Professor McGonagall called and for him I was mutual. If he was in my House, cool. If he was in another house, cool. We never were exactly close.

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Hale, Rosalie," was the last for the vampires and she was sorted into "SLYTHERIN!" to the happiness of the Slytherin boys and the displeasure to our dear, Lee Jordan. She made her way over to the most unpleasant bunch of people I have ever met. She would fit in well there.

The first years begun to sort then, starting with Abercrombie, Euan who became a Gryffindor. After the sorting Dumbledore gave his short speech and food appeared on our plates.

"It's okay, Lee," George said, who elbowed him. Lee looked upset and kept looking longingly to the Slytherin table. I suppose there was a first time for everything, eh?

Once we had finished with our food, Dumbledore began to speak. He was cut off right before we were told when Quidditch tryouts were. I kind of wanted to know about that…

The pink toad had been standing up, it wasn't much of a difference, and cleared her throat, "_Hem, hem."_ It was annoying and high pitched and made me want to kill her.

"Thank you Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome."

"You didn't even let him finish," I muttered under my breath.

"_Hem, hem_," she coughed once more to my disgust. Why did she cough so much? "Well, it was lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!"

No one was happy, at all, and the tone she was using with us was nauseating.

"I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"

I was in shock for a moment. That was a very good joke.

"_Hem, hem_," she coughed again, gaining the attention she didn't quite deserve. "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."

Fred snored a bit, purposely, and I laughed. "_Hem, hem_," she cleared her throat, which stopped my giggles.

"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there would be no stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation…"

Cue where I fall asleep. This was so boring. I don't understand how people like Hermione could be paying a bit of attention to all of the words that she said. Then again, she is Hermione.

I guess she sat down because Dumbledore began to clap. I began to clap furiously, only glad that she was done talking. I'm not going to enjoy class with her all that much.

Dumbledore stood up again and said, "Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating. Now—as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held…"

No one seemed to have a care when the tryouts were held anymore though (second weekend of the month, by the way) and we're all talking of the new professors. People had also begun to take notice of the two others. They would be Carlisle and Esme, although I wouldn't be able to call them that anymore.

Fred leaned down to the other end of the table and came back to tell us the news. Hermione had apparently decoded the entire speech. "The ministry is setting ferrets loose in Hogwarts." He said.

"_What?_"

"That might not have been it exactly," he said with a shrug. I went down to Hermione to get it straight. The Ministry was interfering at Hogwarts.

** A little bit more Fred in this one. Review, because I love reviews, and love is awesome. It's like the whole theme of Harry Potter and stuff, and you know how important that is. So, review, and the next chapter will be the D.A.D.A. class and detention. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Eight**

I woke up early that next morning purely due to the fact I was excited to be back at school. Most kids were not looking forward to going back to school but this was entirely different for me. Hogwarts was like my home, my friends and family is here; I've missed it so much. This was entirely different.

I was sitting down with Fred and George at breakfast when we got our timetables. I had a wonderful schedule, really, it was. I had History of Magic, double Potions, Divination, and double Defense Against the Darks Arts,

I was being sarcastic back there. This was not a very good day for me. It's a great Welcome Home present.

"That's pretty bad," Fred said as he took my timetable and grimaced. "Mine isn't nearly as bad."

"And how many classes are you taking again?" I asked him.

"Three," he answered. He was taking three and I was in my O.W.L. year. Please, somebody just kill me. I groaned. I considered flipping him off but I saw Ron, Hermione, and Harry getting their timetables and I wanted to see if they had the same as me. It might be better if I had someone to suffer with.

I ran down and Fred and George followed me. I grabbed Ron's schedule first and scanned over it. It was exactly the same as mine. I sighed. "At least I won't be alone. Today is horrid, real nice Welcome Home present for me." I rolled my eyes and gave Ron his timetable back.

He looked at his schedule then and groaned as he saw today as well. "Look at today! History of Magic, double Potions, Divination, and double Defense Against the Dark Arts… Binns, Snape, Trelawney, and that Umbridge woman all in one day! I wish Fred and George would get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted…"

Fred came up beside me and said, "Do mine ears deceive me? Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons."

"Look at what we've got today," Ron said and shoved the list towards Fred. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."

"Fair point little bro, you can have a Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

"Why's it cheap?" Ron asked suspiciously. I never thought I'd say this about Ron but, smart boy.

"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said George.

"Cheers," said Ron rather moodily. "But I think I'll take the lessons."

"And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes you can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor notice board." I remember that advertisement, I drew it. I thought it was rather cool looking.

"Says who?" George asked.

"Says me and Ron," Hermione said.

"Leave me out of it," Ron said.

"Oh come on," I said as Hermione glared at Ron and Fred and George sniggered at their brother. "I drew that up and it's rather pretty."

"Your artistic skills are amazing," Fred agreed, nodding his head. He looked to Hermione. "You'll be singing a different tune soon enough Hermione. You're starting your fifth year, you'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."

"And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?"

"Fifth year is O.W.L. year," said George and I groaned. I heard all the horror stories already and was not looking forward to this year.

"So?"

"So you've got your exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they'll be rubbed raw," Fred said satisfactorily.

"Don't be so happy about it," I snapped as I bit off a piece of toast.

"Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to O.W.L.s," George continued just as happily. "Tears and tantrums… Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint…"

"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember?" Fred said, lost in Memory Lane.

"That's 'cause you put Bulbadox Powder in his pajamas," George reminded him.

"Oh yeah," Fred said as he grinned. I remember hearing about that as well. "I'd forgotten… Hard to keep track sometimes isn't it?"

"Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth. If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow," George said.

"Yeah… you got what was it, three O.W.L.s each?" said Ron.

"Yep," Fred said, without an ounce of concern. "But we feel our future is outside the world of academic achievement."

"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year," said George and I thought about this year without Fred and George. I'm glad they decided to come otherwise I don't know how I would live. "Now that we've got—"

He broke off suddenly and I couldn't help but wonder what he got.

"Now that we've got our O.W.L.s," he said but I doubted that was it. "I mean, do we really need N.E.W.T.s? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."

"We're not going to waste our year here though," said Fred as he looked lovingly over the Great Hall. What was he thinking? The students he got to try the products on or the food? "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out what the average Hogwarts student requires from his joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, and then produce the products that fit the demand."

"You know, you actually sounded smart there for a moment," I joked and he flicked a piece of food at my face.

"But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop? You're going to need all the ingredients and materials—and premises too I suppose…"

Fred said, "Ask us no questions and we will tell you no lies, Hermione. C'mon George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology."

They headed off and I said, "Bye Fred, bye George," after them.

"Bye Lily," they said in unison.

Hermione was wondering about everything Fred and George joke shop related. She asked me about it too. But I knew no more than her; I was in America for a good few months after all. Harry turned the conversation elsewhere though and I knew he had something to do with it. I'd ask him later. I mean, he'd had to give me some answers, right? I was his twin after all. Then they talked O.W.L. year which I didn't want to talk about either.

"D'you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?" Harry asked us as we headed off to History of Magic.

"I never really thought about it," I answered. I hadn't though and now I was freaking out just because I didn't know. Thanks, Harry thanks a lot.

Ron thought it would be cool to be an auror, Harry too. Hermione wanted to go further with S.P.E.W of course.

Professor Binns droned on the entire forty-five minutes. I didn't even attempt to pay attention. As soon as I stepped into the room I decided that I was going to fail my O.W.L. for this class. It just wasn't worth it.

After Potions, which was bad for Harry but Snape didn't bother me. He actually seemed to like me in some twisted way. Divination was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and we were now in Defense. I was not looking forward to this class and her outfit today was just as pink (couldn't she at least vary her sickening colors?) and made me want to vomit.

"Well good afternoon," she said with fake cheeriness once we had all sat down.

I mumbled, "Good afternoon," lazily along with a few others.

"Tut, tut," Professor Umbridge said and shook her head. "_That_ won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply, 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge!' One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon Professor Umbridge," we chanted back at her.

"There, now, that wasn't so difficult, was it?" Yes it was. "Wands away and quills out please." This didn't sound like a fun lesson at all. Her lessons were matching up to her appearance: big, fat, and ugly.

Words appeared on the blackboard that we were to copy down. '_Defense Against the Dark Arts A Return to Basic Principles._'

"Well, now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?" Professor Umbridge said as she faced us, the class. "The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your O.W.L year.

"You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following please."

More words appeared on the board once she rapped it with her wand. Everyone in the room copied down the words and it was said that everyone had a copy of the book that had been assigned. She told us to read the first chapter. It was excruciatingly boring. My eyes began to droop every so-and-so often and I had to reread a paragraph several times to get the tiniest bit of sense from it. My hair was turning grey: bored.

Hermione, although we were all instructed to read the boring text, had her book closed shut and her right arm high in the air.

"Did you want to ask something about the chapter dear?" Professor Umbridge asked after several minutes, in that too-sweet voice. It had to be hiding something.

"Not about the chapter, no," Hermione admitted. I wondered what she had on her mind. I paid more attention to this exchange than the book. Although, that wasn't so hard to do.

"Well, we're reading just now. If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class."

"I've got a query about your coarse aims," Hermione said.

Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows and said, "And your name is—?"

"Hermione Granger," she told the professor.

"Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them though carefully," said Umbridge with a fake-sweetener voice.

"Well, I don't." Now wasn't that just blunt? "There's nothing written up there about _using _defensive spells."

Silence, that's all we heard, or didn't hear since, can you really hear silence?

"_Using _defensive spells," Umbridge said, laughing as if that was one of the most idiotic ideas she has ever heard of. "Why, I can't imagine any situation in my classroom that would require you to _use_ a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren't expecting to be attacked during my class?"

"We're not going to be using magic?" Ron asked rather loudly.

"Students raise their hand when they wish to speak in my class. Mr.—?"

"Weasley," Ron said as he threw his hand into the air. I had to hold in my laughter.

She turned her back and Harry, Hermione, and I all raised our hands high into the air.

"Yes Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Surely the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?"

"Are you a Ministry-trained expert, Miss Granger?" asked the Professor.

"No, but—"

"Well then," she cut off Hermione. "I'm afraid you're not qualified to decide what the 'whole point' of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way—"

"What use is that?" Harry asked, suddenly. It's okay though, because technically, his hand _was_ raised. "If we're going to be attacked it won't be in a—"

"_Hand_, Mr. Potter," Pink Toad-Face snapped in a sing-song kind of way. Harry threw his hand down to talk and he gets snapped at. I mean honestly…

Pink Toad-Face ignored him but several more people had their hands up in the air now.

"And your name is?" she asked Dean.

"Dean Thomas," he answered her.

"Well, Mr. Thomas?"

"Well, it's like Harry said, isn't it? If we're going to be attacked it won't be risk-free—"

"I repeat do you expect to be attacked during my classes?"

"No, but—"

"I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed—not to mention, extremely dangerous half-breeds."

"If you mean Professor Lupin, he was the best we ever—" Dean Thomas began to say but got cut off once again.

"_Hand_, Mr. Thomas! As I was saying—you have been introduced to spells that have been complex, inappropriate, to your age group, and potentially lethal. You have been frightened into believing that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day—"

"No we haven't, we just—"

"_Your hand is not up Miss Granger!_"

Hermione put her hand and up Pink Toad-Face turned away.

"It is my understanding that my predecessor not only preformed illegal curses in front of you but he also preformed then _on_ you—"

"Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn't he?" said Dean. "Mind you we still learned loads…"

_"Your hand is not up, Mr. Thomas,"_ Pink Toad-Face screeched. She should really give up now. Hasn't she guessed that we are not going to be putting our hands up? "Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. And your name is?" she added as she looked to Parvati Patil.

"Parvati Patil, and isn't there a practical bit in our Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the countercurses and things?"

"As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions," Pink Toad-Face said.

"Without ever practicing them before?" said Parvati in shock. "Are you telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?"

"I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough—"

"And what good's theory in the real world?" said Harry with his fist in the air. Hey, at least he remembered that part. I've heard too many yelling's about hands in the air.

"This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world," she said.

"So we're not supposed to be prepared for what's waiting out there?"

"There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter."

"Oh yeah?" His temper is going over the top. Oh no, I've seen this before and it isn't pretty.

"Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?"

"Hmm, let's think… maybe _Lord Voldemort_!" A gasp, a scream, and a topple had occurred in reaction to a silly name.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter."

Silence, that's it. Everyone was looking at either Harry or Pink Toad-Face.

"Now, let's make a few things quite plain. You have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned from the dead."

"He wasn't dead, but yeah, he returned!" Harry spoke out of anger.

"Mr.-Potter-you-have-already-lost-your-House-ten-points-don't-make-matters-worse-for-yourself," said Pink Toad-Face in a hurry. "As I was saying, you have been informed that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. _This is a lie!_"

Oh dear.

"It is NOT a lie! I saw him, I fought him!"

"Detention, Mr. Potter! Tomorrow evening, five o'clock, my office. I repeat, _this is a lie. _The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any Dark Wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming you with fibs about reborn Dark wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am you friend. And now, you will kindly continue reading, page five, 'Basic for Beginners.'"

Pink Toad-Face sat down at her desk again. Harry stood up though. Oh no.

"Harry, no!" Hermione whispered and tugged on his sleeve.

"So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead on his own accord, did he?" Harry said.

"Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident," she said.

"How did he die in the Twiwizard Tournament then?" I asked, letting my anger come out. I stood up with my brother. "If the Ministry is so fool-proof and made sure the Twiwizard Tournament was safe and no one would die _how did he die?"_

"Voldemort killed him!" Harry said.

"Detention for you too, Miss Potter. Come here, both you and your brother."

Harry kicked his chair aside and made his way over while I just moved the chair. The chair really never did anything to us. Once upon a time he had been our friend.

She took out a roll of pink parchment (pink?) and wrote a note on it. Nobody said a single word and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

"Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear," she said and shooed us away.

**xXx**

Harry and I made our way to Umbridge's office and we fought over who was going to knock on the door. "I don't want to knock on the door; you knock on the door!"

"Why do I have to knock on the door?" Harry asked impatiently.

"You're the one who started it," I snapped at him in a hushed voice. "You can knock on the door!"

"Fine," he groaned and knocked on the door.

"Come in," she said in her fake sweetener voice. Harry opened the door, because I glared at him and there was no time to fight about it.

"Good evening, Mr. and Miss Potter."

"Evening," we both mumbled.

"Well sit down," she said and I began to go too but she stopped me. "Miss Potter, I would wish for you to wait in there." She pointed one of her pudgy fingers to another door.

I looked back at Harry for a moment before I walked into the doors. Inside the door was a very small room, it could have been a closet, perhaps, but it had a single desk centered in the middle. I sat down on it and wondered what she was going to have me do.

I felt kind of nervous; I was just sitting in the desk though, tapping my fingers impatiently. She cracked the door open soon enough though and I saw Pink Toad-Face coming in behind it. She shut the door completely and muttered a spell around us that I could not hear.

She spotted me sitting at the desk and said, "Good I see that you're sitting. Now, I have a few questions for you." She circled around my desk like she was a shark and I was a tiny fish, her prey.

"You were absent from school from March until June. Where were you?"

I knew the answer off the tip of my tongue. It was so well-practiced. "I transferred for a semester. I went to Morgana & Martines School for Magic Beings."

She then leaned down onto my desk in front of me and I could smell her breath. It made me want to puke but I tried to breathe through my mouth and ignore it.

"I _know _that you didn't go to Morgana & Martines School for Magic Beings, Miss Potter, because I looked it up in their records and you were most certainly not enrolled there." She had an evil grin now and my heart was pounding. I never expected anyone to actually look it up to see if I was telling the truth. I just expected them to believe me.

I went along with the story. It was what I was supposed to do at all times. "You must have looked it up wrong, Professor Umbridge, because I _was_ enrolled there as a transfer student."

"Miss Potter," she said, in a quite girly voice. "I know you are lying to me and good girls do not lie. You don't want to end up the same way as your brother now."

"What's wrong with my brother?"

"Your brother is a liar, attention-seeking, delusion child and those kinds of people are frowned upon in our community."

"My brother is _none _of those things," I said to her angrily.

"Well, maybe this will loosen your tongue," she said and grabbed her wand.

"What?" I began to say but I didn't have enough time. She whipped her wand out and said, "_Crucio_" as she pointed her wand at me.

Indescribable pain was all that I felt in that moment. My body was being run over by elephants; I was being set on fire yet frozen to death at the same time. Pain was something you couldn't describe though. No matter how well you described it, the other end would never understand, for they were feeling no pain. Pain was tricky.

Professor Umbridge let go of the curse and looked to me. I panted, wanting to get as much air in as possible. I prayed to God and Merlin, whoever happened to be more powerful, that this lady would stop using the curse on me.

But it happened again when she asked, and I had no response for her. I could feel my chest tightening, the elephants pounding, the weird fire-and-ice feeling. I could hear screaming. I didn't realize until she left the curse off me once more that the screaming sound was coming from me.

Why wasn't Harry helping? He must be able to hear my screams. Why is he doing nothing? I then realize the spell that Professor Umbridge casted once we stepped in was some sort of sound-proof charm.

I was put under the dreadful curse one last time, but said nothing. I could feel the pain, but I was a Gryffindor. I wasn't going to say a thing. I wasn't going to break.

Disappointed, Pink Toad-Face looked at me. She frowned sadly as she looked to the ground, and then back up at me. She then said, "I can see torturing you is having no effect. I can find only one way to turn you around now, Miss Potter."

Before I could object, before I could say a single word, she pointed her wand at me and said the word, "_Imperio."_

**For some stranger reason the internet on my laptop is not working whatsoever so I just retyped that entire chapter onto my home computer. It took about three hours. It's 5:30 and I haven't eaten a thing all day. You guys better show your appreciation and review…**


	9. Chapter 9

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Nine**

_Go to your_ _common room. Go to your common room_ a voice whispered in my head. I had a strong urge to listen to it. I knew I had to listen to it.

I arose from my desk in center of the room and left, passed a boy with jet black hair. What was his name? Harry, I remembered that. It didn't seem all that important though. He had a weird scar on his forehead, like lightning. A voice told me that I wasn't supposed to like him.

Then, I thought, maybe I did like him. He might be my brother, my best friend. I might love him.

_No, _the voice inside my head told me. He was obviously none of those things. I walked out of the room, the Harry kid watching me with curious eyes.

"Continue your work, Mr. Potter," a sugary voice said. The Voice told me I liked her. I should obey her at all times. I should treat her with respect. I will treat her with respect. "Miss Potter has been dismissed early."

I was Miss Potter. My name was Isabella Lily Potter. I liked to be called Lily.

I felt happy. I liked doing these things. I'm walking to the common room. This is fun. It's like jumping from cotton candy clouds. It made me feel like I was floating on top of a cool, clear pool of water.

I felt relaxed as I walked to the common room. I made it to the Fat Lady and gave her the password and she let me in.

"Lily!" people cried as I entered the room. I recognized them as my friends. The one with the bushy hair was Hermione. She was a know-it-all and standoffish and controlling. I don't really like her.

Wait, don't I love her?

No, The Voice reminded me. I don't like her.

The tall one with the red hair was Ron. I shouldn't like him either.

The twins were Fred and George. I can't tell them apart. They're confusing me. They're troublesome. They could get me into trouble. I don't like them either. I need good friends. I need nice friends. I have to pretend to like these people though.

I might really love them though…

No, The Voice reminded me again, softly, comfortingly. I don't like them. Not liking them felt more comfortable, relaxing, so I must not like them.

"Where's Harry?" the Hermione girl asked me. The Voice told me what to say.

"Harry's still in detention for being bad," I said.

They looked at me oddly and then continued on.

"How was detention with the witch?" one of the twins, whom I did not like, asked. His jumper had an 'F' on it though, so perhaps it was Fred.

"She was nice," The Voice told me to say. "It wasn't bad."

In the back of my mind, I remembered pain, and a lot of it. I remembered it during the detention but a wave of calm was sent over me and I forgot. It was better to forget.

I got some more odd looks but why should that matter? They aren't my friends. They aren't my friends. I don't care. I don't care. I need new friends. I need someone nice to be my friend.

The Voice then told me that I had to do my homework. I did my best on my homework with my 'friends' surrounding me. I went up to bed before the one called Harry came back up. Lavender Brown was up there. The Voice told me she was nice. I liked her.

"Lavender," I said her name, because The Voice told me too. She looked back to me and groaned.

"What do you want _Potter_? Are you going to try to sell me some more of your lies?"

"No, not at all," I said and shook my head. Why would I want to tell her lies? Lying is bad. I must not lie. "I came to apologize for my lying and to tell you that you were right. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is not back. Harry is telling lies and I agree with you and the Ministry."

Lavender smiled. "It's about time," she squealed. "They're all wrong and it's awful of them to be telling people this nonsense."

"I know," I agreed, although a small part of me felt like I shouldn't. But that part was uncomfortable. I don't like being uncomfortable. It is better to just agree then. I agree. That's what The Voice told me. "I don't like Harry anymore. I don't like my old friends. It's time I make new friends. Be my friend?" I asked her.

I saw Hermione come into the dorm, gasp, and run away. She heard. That's okay though. It doesn't matter if she heard. This might mean she's going to stop being my friend.

I talked to Lavender the rest of the night. She was nice. She was a good person. She wasn't crazy like my old friends. She didn't make up lies. She made me feel nice and relaxed, not like my other friends.

I fell asleep before the bushy haired old friend of mine could come in to talk to me.

The next morning at breakfast I was talking to my new friends, I liked them better. My new friends were Lavender and Seamus. They didn't believe Harry either. That's good, because Harry is telling lies. It is not good to tell lies. Harry would agree with the Ministry if he knew what was good for him.

Harry tried to come up and talk to me today during lunch. "Hey, Lily," he said to me.

"Go away Harry," I said to him sharply, listening to the soothing sounds of The Voice. "I don't talk to liars."

He looked at me confused, and then he was angry. "What are you talking about Lily?"

"You're lying about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named being back and you're disagreeing with the ministry. I don't want to be on good terms with you if you keep saying that."

"But you _know _I'm telling the truth about Lord Voldemort!" Harry said angrily.

"You're not telling the truth, Harry," I told him. That's what The Voice said, and The Voice was so nice and reassuring, he couldn't be wrong. I felt like that maybe he was right. But it was more relaxing to not think he was right. He was wrong.

Hermione then gave Harry a warning look and he came back to his part of the table. They began to whisper to each other and Fred and George joined in. I didn't care though. Did I?

I went through all of my classes for the days like I should. I did it like The Voice told me too. I listened to all of my teachers. I paid attention in class, even History of Magic. I remember wanting to do badly in that class, I didn't care whether or not I failed my O.W.L. but now I care. I should have always cared. I knew better now though; I'm caring now.

I did all of my homework and I talked to Lavender and Seamus each night. We talked about my twin, and the wrongs he was doing. I was sad to see him going in such a wrong direction. We talked about how crazy my old friends had to be to believe such lies. We wondered what happened to Dumbledore, the old fraud. When would the lot of them ever learn?

I had to finish up my homework while Lavender and Seamus went to bed. They had finished theirs already but I had to make sure mine was perfect. I had to get the best grades on my O.W.L.s after all.

I scribbled with my quill on my parchment. I liked the look of the factual information on my parchment. My penmanship was nice as well. It was quiet in the common room, not many people were up. I didn't always feel the need to sleep anymore though. I was so relaxed all the time anyway I hardly needed it.

I heard footsteps then. I tried to ignore them; they were most likely nothing of importance to me. They would be nothing at all. They were just footsteps.

These footsteps turned out to take the form of one of the twins. I still wasn't sure which one though. They were still way to confusing and I had yet to tell one apart unless they were wearing one of their letter jumpers. He was not though.

"Which one are you?" I asked him as I scribbled on my homework some more and barely looked up to him. When I did though he gave me an incredulous sort of look.

"You don't know which one I am?"

"No, you're an identical twin, you look exactly like the other one," I told the strange, red haired twin. "I can't tell you apart."

He frowned and looked disappointed. I scribbled some more words onto the parchment. I did my best to ignore the twin because I didn't like associating with people like him. But I did happen to ask him, out of plain curiosity, "So which one are you?"

"Fred," he answered stiffly. "You've been hanging out with Lavender and Seamus a lot, haven't you? You haven't pulled a prank with George and me in a while."

"Pranking is stupid and idiotic and I will not participate in such rule-breaking," I told the Fred twin stiffly. "I would hope you would take my advice as well."

He nodded his head and but I highly doubted that he would take my advice. I didn't like him at all. He was annoying, a liar, troublesome, and stupid. What did I ever like about him and his twin in the first place?

I remembered then. It wasn't as relaxed, but in a way, the memories felt good to me. I remember all the laughs we had. I loved how the both of them saw me as Lily Potter, and not Harry Potter's sister. In many eyes of the wizarding community that was all I was, and probably ever would be. I'm not anything important really. I liked that though. They made me feel better when I was sad. They liked me for who I was…

_No, no, no, _The Voice said to me. _You do not like the Weasley twins. They are obnoxious. You hate them. _

Do I? Do I really hate them? Why do I hate them? Do I have a reason for it? This thing seems very silly.

_You hate them. You hate them. You hate them. You hate them. _

But why do I hate them?

_You hate them. Do your homework. Relax. _

I did so and finished my homework and I was still obviously aware of Fred sitting next to me, breathing deeply. I could hear the crackling of the far away fire. I was sitting as far away as possible. I didn't like the fire.

"Why are you sitting over here?" Fred asked me abruptly.

"What are you talking about?" I questioned the boy.

"You always sit next to the fire, you love sitting there."

"I'm not going anywhere near that fire. I don't like fires nor did I ever," I told the boy. He thought he knew me, but he didn't. This is why I didn't like him.

Or maybe I just didn't know myself…

_He doesn't know you. That's why you don't like him. Stay away from him. _

"Are you going to sit with Harry, Hermione, Ron, George, and I in the Great Hall tomorrow?" Fred asked me. I didn't know what to say. A part of me wanted to but that yearning was soon set aside seeing as it was so idiotic.

_No, you don't like them. You don't want to be seen with a bunch of _liars_. _

I shook my head. "No, I don't want to be a friend with anyone who believes in the lies my brother is telling. They aren't true. I don't want to be friends with those kind of people any more. Would you please leave me alone now?"

He looked sad, but for some reason I didn't care. I just felt happy. I knew that I should feel sad for making him feel bad but I didn't. I was just happy and that was the only thing I could say. As to my request Fred got up and left for his dorm. I left too, setting my books into my bag as that was enough for the night. I went up the stairs and I could hear one of the twins, possibly the Fred one, talking.

"She's definitely under the Imperius Curse."

** Sorry for the short chapter, I swear the next one will be longer! And thanks to all of you for caring so much that I didn't eat! It made me feel happy! :) And I got food to, no worries, I'm not anorexic. I'm kind of the opposite actually… But my laptop had to get fixed, he's all better now, and I can update sooner. I love you all, and review, because now that I know you can, I'm going to expect it! **


	10. Chapter 10

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Ten**

What one of the twins said had been on the back of my mind. Could I really be under the Imperius Curse? There were some times when that seemed just impossible, but there were other times when it made perfect sense. Whenever I did think that it made sense though there was The Voice butting in and convincing me in the most relaxing way possible that it wasn't the Imperius Curse.

It kept making more sense to me though, despite what The Voice said. Why did I even have a voice in my head? Was that healthy at all for me? I don't think it is. It might be a part of this curse. I had only ever been under the curse once, and it wasn't a very strong one I'm sure. It told me what to do though, and what to think, just like this time.

I've also been noticing that I've been getting funny looks from the people around me. Some of the people were my old friends, while Professor McGonagall gave me these looks as well. I didn't know what to make out of it. Did they tell her their suspicions?

The Voice told me to go along with my life though, and not to worry about those petty people. It was so hard to fight The Voice. I went along with it. I kept getting my grades, and hanging around with Lavender and Seamus. Every once in a while though I looked to my old friends, and usually they were looking back at me. They looked worried. The Voice told me not to worry about it, but they used to be my friends for a reason, right?

When they weren't looking at me though they were leaned into each other and whispering. It made me wonder what they were talking about that had to be so secretive.

After class one day, Professor McGonagall called me up after class. What did I do? I hadn't done anything wrong, had I? I've done all my homework. I wasn't messing up around class. What was the reason for this?

All the students left after the bell to go to their next class but I stood next to Professor McGonagall's desk and waited while she sorted out some parchment and tidied them up. After she was done, she looked to me and said, "Miss Potter, I would just like you to remember that it is okay, and even very good, to do things out of your comfort zone."

And then, with a nod, I was dismissed as I scurried off to my next class.

I now understood, that yes, I was under the Imperius Curse. I knew that I had to break it. I felt like I didn't want to break it though. Whenever I almost broke it, because there were times, it was horrible. I had a terrible feeling. I realized that although being under this influence was bad, it was also great. It felt relaxing. All my troubles went away; there was nothing to worry about at all. I couldn't say the same outside of the curse. Outside of the curse, I felt terrible. Outside of the curse, everything was just so real, and right now, reality was horrible.

So, due to my very selfish reasons, I listened to The Voice that was controlling me. I was feeding off of it and taking in every word it said. It felt good. It felt right. I was floating, I was relaxed, and everything was fine.

I'd catch a glimpse though of Fred or George, who I sometimes realized, I missed, alone with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I had grown up with Harry, went through everything with him, through thick and thin. He was there with me through the Dursley's, and I was there for him. When they were just so horrible that we couldn't stand it we would always vent to each other. Now, he wasn't here anymore, and that was no one's fault but mine.

A part of me knew that I really needed my friends and family back. I needed my life back. But not only did this curse feel good, it felt addicting. I'd get away from it, but I'd want more. I'd want more, because it felt good. My life was in turmoil and this made me forget about it. It felt like I was under water, and drowning, not able to swim back up, when I tried.

The Voice had been giving me harsher directions lately. And today, it was most definitely the worst I've ever had.

I was sitting in the Common Room when I got the directions. I could feel one of the twins watching me from a distance, but I chose to ignore it. I could feel the warmth of the far away fire and my quill was scratching against the parchment. It was late at night, and no one was expected really to still be up.

_Kill Harry Potter. Kill Harry Potter. Go up to his dormitory and kill him in his sleep._

I couldn't help myself but get up at once. My ink spilt on my parchment as it lay forgotten. I left it there and went up the stairs.

"What are you—?"The one twin asked as I climbed the steps and ignored him. I took out my wand from my pocket and climbed the stairs stealthily. I creaked open the door to his room without thinking.

I opened his curtains slowly, where Harry was sleeping. I saw him though and remembered all the times. He was my best friend, and even though he's been the famous one for the past five years, he would always be my best friend.

_Kill him. Kill him. _

NO! I wasn't going to kill! I'm not listening to you anymore!

I came back to reality, out of the curse. I gasped, and dropped my wand. Fred came up, as he must have decided to follow me. I looked at the scene, not a single person awoken, yet still. I saw everything, and I passed out.

**xXx**

"I cann_ot_ believe you brought that with you Ronald," a voice snapped.

"What? I 'as 'ungwy!"

I squeezed my eyes tighter until I opened them and looked around. Fred, George, Ron, Hermione and Harry were all standing around me. My eyes landed on Ron, who was eating chicken in the middle of the hospital.

"I want chicken," I said and tried to grab Ron's. He pulled back from me. I was hungry and Ron wouldn't give me chicken… some friend I have. Fred grabbed the chicken from the greedy boy's hand, took a bite for himself, and handed it to me.

"Thanks," I said brightly as I ate some of the chicken. Hermione ran off to go get Madam Pomfrey.

"What happened to me anyway?" I asked, feeling no pain except for a slight throbbing on the back of my head.

"You fainted," George said. "Fred found you and brought you back over here."

"Thanks, Fred," I said to my friend. He nodded and smiled at me.

"Oh, you're awake," Madam Pomfrey said when she came back with Hermione. "I should get to calling Dumbledore now. He's going to want to ask you some questions."

She then scurried off, probably to find Dumbledore.

"How long have I been out then?" I asked them.

"A little more than twelve hours," Harry answered.

"Oh," was all I said, taking in that I just wasted a little over twelve hours of my day passed out. But then again, that's kind of what happens when you sleep, right?

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall came along then and joined the group of people around my bed.

"I would wish for everyone but Mr. Potter to leave please," Dumbledore said and the rest of them disappeared out of the room quickly. Fred and George waved to me as they left. I smiled back at them, before frowning once again, wondering what they were going to ask me.

"Now, Miss Potter, we have suspicions that in the past couple of days, you were under the Imperius Curse, is that true?" Professor McGonagall asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"In the detention you served for Professor Umbridge what did she have you do?"

I was kind of uncomfortable answering questions, but I went on with it anyway. "She asked me questions about me going to school in America, and I told her that I went to school there. She just kept asking me and that's what I kept telling her and then she told me that she didn't want me to turn out like Harry, or something like that, and she figured the only way for me not to turn out that way was to Imperius me."

"I see, I see," Dumbledore muttered, mainly to him I think. "Well, I think you have had quite enough for the day, and you are free to leave and get some lunch. I can see that you must be fairly hungry so you can leave whenever you wish."

Then, without another word, he left, his cloak sweeping against the floor, and out the doors. Harry and I looked at each other.

I got off of the stiff hospital bed, and walked out the door too. Harry walked with me.

"Do you notice how he never looks at us when he talks?" Harry asked me. I hadn't not until now, but he has.

"Well since you mention it, he does do that, doesn't he? What do you think the reason for that is?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm not exactly fond of it," Harry grumbled. He must be used to being Dumbledore's favorite so much… But then again, everyone just _loved _Harry.

"It's Dumbledore," I reasoned. "He must be doing it for some logical reason."

"Maybe he is," Harry said, although he didn't seem to have too much hope in the idea.

"Whatever the reason, I want food," I said, before throwing the doors to the Great Hall open and sitting over by Fred and George.

"Hello," I said brightly as I picked up another piece of chicken, and discarding the old piece with some Ron germs.

"Feeling better, Lily Pad?" George asked me.

"Much," I said and bit into the chicken.

"Since you are feeling so much better, we have a proposition for you," Fred said with a smile.

"And what would this proposition be?" I asked them.

"Help us with Weasley Wizard Wheezes; we're setting up location in Moaning Myrtles toilets at the moment."

"I'd love to," I told the two of them.

So that night, I made my way down to the abandoned toilets and set up the store with my two idiotic friends, Fred and George. They were completely crazy and wanted to own a joke shop, but I loved them anyway.

"You want me to put the Puking Pastilles by the toilets?" I asked them, scrunching my nose at the idea.

"Of course," George said to me.

"They are_ puking_ pastilles, aren't they? It's only normal to put them by the toilet," Fred finished off.

"I wouldn't call that normal," I muttered under my breath as I set the sweets by the toilets. Just as I was setting them down by the toilet something came out of it and the toilet water splash me in the face and I stumbled backwards and hit the door of the toilet.

"Ouch," I said as I put my hand to the soon-to-be bruised spot on my head. I looked around trying to find what the cause of my pain was. I kind of _just_ got over my fainting headache, and now I have this.

I looked around and found the annoyance: Myrtle.

"Well, hello Myrtle," George said.

"Fancy seeing you here," Fred replied. I walked out of the stall, holding my hand to my head. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm just fine…" I said, not saying anything to bad or hardly anything at all, because I didn't want Myrtle to have a fit.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Myrtle snapped at us.

"Setting up shop," George said simply as Fred insisted on looking at my head. He searched through my currently orange hair (annoyed) looking for some sort of serious harm done to me. But as they both know, my head was already seriously harmed.

It's bad when you say that kind of stuff about yourself, but I never pass up a good chance to insult someone, even if that someone just so happens to be myself. If you look at it on the bright side that means that I have never really had a big ego.

"You're setting up _what_ kind of shop," she continued to ask.

"A joke shop," Fred answered nonchalantly as he finished searching my hair.

"We couldn't do it in our common room without a Prefect breathing down our necks," George shrugged.

"Well then," Myrtle sniffed. She eyed Fred and me, and we were standing pretty close together and she smiled. That fact was quite surprising because not once have I ever seen Moaning Myrtle smile. "You two look cute together," she said, grinning. "Are you dating?"

"What? No!" We both said at the same time, but now George was smirking too. Did they know something I didn't? Of course they couldn't. George can't know something I don't, it's impossible!

And that is where the whole 'at-least-I-don't-have-a-big-ego thing is countered.

"Well, you should then… I'll just leave you alone to do your shop then." She then whirled back into her toilet, which I refuse to get close to every again, and span in circles into it. If you really thought about it, it could be kind of fun to be a ghost. It's all like, I can haunt you, I can walk through walls, and you're all human and can't do any of this wicked fun stuff. I'd be like a Ghost-Peeves, causing mayhem and the like, no one can do anything about it. But when I die, I'm going on, so I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

It was silent between the three of us for a bit once she left, the tension getting thick, but then George clapped his hands together and said, "Let's sell some kid's their joke needs!"

So then we let the children in, letting them know that we are now open for business. I did stay completely away from the puking pastilles and the fainting fancies today. The puking sweet because of the horror of Myrtle's toilet, and the fainting sweet because it happened to be a touchy subject for the day and nobody was going to push it on me.

Only about a half hour after we started selling to children a boy, who was similar to me with jet black hair and glasses walked into the store and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Yes Harry?" I asked as I spun to face him.

"Hermione told me to find you. She said that you need to catch up on studying for your O.W.L.s," my twin told me. I so hate my friends right now.

"You've got to be kidding me," I complained. "It hasn't even been two weeks into school and she's making me study!"

"Tell me about it," he groaned. "You're not the one that is around her constantly, mind you."

"Yeah, the craziness of Fred and George kind of levels me out, I suppose."

"You're crazy all on your own," Harry said with a laugh and I stuck my tongue out at him, because I happen to be very mature.

"Come on then, don't need to keep Hermione waiting, trust me," Harry said.

"Let me tell Fred and George," I said first. I ran off and found Fred leaning against the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, little did he know, and smiling as he looked over the products and students buying them. This really was what he loved to do. I poked him and he exited his current state of 'This-is-the-best' mind.

"Yes, my dear Lily Pad, what do you need?"

"Hermione's hunting me down and wants me to study. So I'm going to leave before she discovers what you guys are doing here."

"Get the hell out of here," Fred told me.

"I love you too," I called as I exited the bathroom. I left with Harry and went to the Common Room.

Hermione was there waiting, tons of books in tow and her hair flying all over the place. But maybe it just did that naturally.

"Come on, come on, come on," she said as she tugged on my arm. "Do you realize how little time we have? We need to study!"

"Aw, come on Hermione. I've been on my sickbed for half the day and you want me to study? Don't I ever get a break?"

"If you're well enough to do whatever with Fred and George you are well enough to study," she said sharply.

"I'm _always _well enough to do something with Fred and George," I told her.

"I know," she said with a sigh as she tugged me along to a desk, filled with even more books than what she was carrying with one arm. This should be fun…

**I love you guys all so, so much. You are the **_**best**_**. I simply just love your reviews and insist that you keep them coming! **


	11. Chapter 11

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Eleven **

It's the third week of school. It is still September and Hermione continued on about hounding me to study. I did not like it. I did not like it one tiny bit. I didn't need to study; there was hardly anything to study.

Since Fred and George had landed themselves in detention Harry and I were hiding away in a corner, away from the crazy 'You-Have-To-Study!' Hermione.

We were in a tiny corner of the Common Room, where there was no hope of her finding us, my knees were hugged to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs.

"What kind of food starts with 'H'?" I asked Harry, surprised I couldn't think of one.

"I don't know you're the one who has the letter!"

"I'll bring… jalapenos," I decided.

"Who brings jalapenos to a picnic? And jalapeno starts with 'j,' Lily."

"I knew that," I mumbled and tried to think of something else to bring to the picnic we were metaphorically attending. H… H… H… what the hell started with 'H?' Hell started with 'H.' Are there any foods that start with 'hell?' No, I don't think so. Shit.

"Hogwarts," I tried.

"Have fun bringing that to a picnic," he mumbled. We were talking quietly so that no one will find us and report us to Hermione.

"Hot dogs," I finally said.

"Huh?"

"It's more common in America," I told him. "You're turn."

"I… How about ice cubes," he said.

"I love how you get yours so easily," I sighed.

"Just do the 'j,'" Harry said.

"Jalapenos," I said. I could use that now.

"That works this time," Harry said. "Now, a food that starts with K…"

Then a small petite girl in Gryffindor robes, with a spiky hairstyle stood in front of us, and she coughed to get our attention. It was none other than Alice Cullen.

"I found you," she said simply.

"How did you find us?" I asked her.

"Your scent," she said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "It's very distinct, that Tonks girl has the exact same one."

"Must be a metemorphmagus thing," I muttered to myself mainly. That really could explain a lot, but I'm not going to delve into that.

"Anyway, that Hermione girl was looking for you," Alice said. Harry cursed and ran. Oh, how lovely. That's cool. He can just run from me so easily.

"Don't you two like Hermione?"

"No, we love her and all, but she's crazy when she gets like this, and we find it best to stay away," I said.

"You sound like my brother," she said with a sigh. She then sat down next to me.

"Which one?"

"Edward, he's always convinced leaving is the best thing when it never is," she said. She sighed once more before springing up back to her feet like a cartoon character.

"Anyway, nice talking to you and all, but I got to run."

Well that was odd…

**xXx**

"Hey, Lily, would you set up those by the toi—" George was asking me but I cut him off.

"No, there's no way I'm going over there. I'm not getting knocked over by a ghost again. Someone else can set up Puking Pastilles by the toilets."

"Hey Fred, go set up the Puking Pastilles by the toilets," George commanded of his twin. Fred set up the sweets over there and came out unharmed.

"Wow, barely made it out with my life," he joked. I glared at him.

"You know," I said thoughtfully. "You still have yet to have blown up a toilet. Ginny must be disappointed that you have never sent her a Hogwarts toilet seat."

"She sees them nearly every day now," George said with a shrug. "I really don't think she needs one anymore."

"Well who wouldn't want one?"

"Do _you_ want a Hogwarts Toilet seat, Lily Pad?" Fred asked me.

"Only if you want to blow one up for me," I told him.

"It looks like we're good, open?" George said, scanning over the space that we turned into a joke shop rather than a loo and the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

"Open," Fred agreed with a nod and soon enough kids poured in. I have no idea how they let these kids know when they are open and when they are not, but they know somehow. In the past years that I have known these two I've just learned not to question how they do some of the stuff they do.

If Fred and George ever did open up a shop, which I didn't have a doubt in my mind that they wouldn't, they were going to be successful. They're doing so well when they're just secretly running a business in a girl's toilet.

Then one student happened to wander in who I didn't particularly ever want to see. He had bronze hair. There was only one possibility, because really, who has bronze hair? It was Edward Cullen of course. He was accompanied by no other than his Gryffindor brother, Emmett. I suppose it would make sense that Emmett would be here. I mean, he's Emmett. Do we need any more explanation?

"Isn't this awesome?" I heard him ask his brother.

"Uh huh," he said in a monotone voice. "Emmett, why on Earth did you have to drag me here?"

"You've got to lighten up, man! Have some fun. I know you miss…" Emmett was then silenced, cut off, for some unknown reason. By the pair came up to me and Emmett tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around and looked at both of them. "What are you doing here?"

"Are we not allowed to be here?" Edward asked as he sneered at me. We have come to hate each other really. I don't know why he hated me, but I hate him.

"Doesn't seem like the kind of place you're type would be," I said simply.

"What do you mean by 'our type'?" Edward asked me.

"It's just you. You're stuck-up, obnoxious, grumpy, and not a person people really want to be around," I said simply."You're not really a person, who wants to have fun, are you? You don't like any risk."

"I like risk plenty," he scoffed at me.

"Yeah, that's why you were placed in Ravenclaw. Not that Ravenclaw's are bad or anything, but they are kind of cautious aren't they?"

"If by cautious you mean smart, then yes."

"Would you two shut up," Emmett said sharply. "I need more stuff to prank with."

"It's a good thing you came to a joke shop then," I said. "We have a ton of that stuff. What did you need me for anyway?"

"Do you have whoopee cushions?"

"No."

"Not one?"

"Not one," I told him. "This is a magic joke shop, like real magic. I'm sure you'll be able to find something somewhere to fill your pranking needs. Now go, shoo, before I flip out at you two."

"Would you really do that to us?" Edward asked. I tried to ignore him. I tried to ignore everything he used to be to me. But now, he hates me. I need to get him to not hate me…

"Yes," I said. They got out of my way quickly then.

"Hey Lily," a voice came before me and I gasped and jumped slightly. My hair must have turned bright blue.

"What do you want Fred?" I snapped at him.

"Well calm it down, Lily Pad. Hey, are you okay?"

I wasn't. I really, really, wasn't. But I sure as hell wasn't going to let anybody know that. "I'm fine," I lied. "I'm really fine." Then I left Fred standing there as I stormed out of the makeshift joke shop of the Weasley twins and headed to a different toilet so I could be miserable in peace.

Tears were threatening to spill in my eyes but I kept on walking. "Lily!" I heard someone call after me but I kept on walking. Just ignore them. Just ignore them.

"Lily!" The same person said again, I could tell who it was, but I wasn't going to listen to them. I can't hear them. I'm just going to keep on walking. It isn't that far away. And once I'm in there they can't bother me.

"Lily," they said again but I could no longer ignore him because he had caught up with me.

"I said I was _fine_ Fred," I snapped at him.

"Well you don't look fine," Fred said as he stopped a tear that just so happened to be rolling down my cheek.

"I am," I still insisted though.

_ "_Lily—" Fred started but I cut him off.

"Look Fred, it's nice that you care and all, but right now, I don't want to talk to anyone, okay?" Then without a response from him I stormed off to the bathroom. I just wished all the Cullen's would die, but that's not entirely possible, is it? Damn them.

**xXx**

It was the first weekend for a Hogsmeade trip and Umbridge was getting no better. She was getting worse in fact, as was her authority. What the hell was a High Inquisitor anyway? I'm pretty sure none of the other schools have one, and we don't need one either. We needed to do something. And Hermione always had a plan, so no surprise she already made one up.

She somehow convinced Harry to start up a Defense Against the Dark Arts club, Hermione told all of us to meet up at Hog's Head that weekend. So after our trip to Zonko's Fred, George, Lee, and I made our way to the Hog's Head. We were the last there and Harry seemed to be freaking out.

"Hi," Fred said to the bartender there. He looked shocked, not much of a surprise; I doubt he saw his bar full that often and now there were a whole lot of Hogwarts students in it. He counted all of the people present and said "Could we have… twenty-six butterbeers please?"

The man looked very irritated. He threw his rag down before handing out the butterbeers that were covered in dust. I wiped the dust off mine with my hand before taking a gulp of it.

Everyone was watching Harry and he wasn't saying anything, he looked quite nervous in fact. Hermione ended up being the one who was speaking.

"Er," her voice was higher than usual. "Well—er—hi." What a lovely opening.

"Well… erm… well, you know why you're here. Erm… well, Harry here had the idea, I mean, I had the idea—that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts—and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Hear, hear," Anthony Goldstein said.

"Well, I thought it would be good if we well, took matters into our own hands." She paused, looked at Harry, and then continued on with her speech. "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but the real spells—"

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too though, I bet?" said Michael Corner.

"Of course I do," said Hermione. This is Hermione we are talking about. She wants nothing more. "But I want more than that, I want to be properly trained in Defense because… because… because Lord Voldemort is back." Everyone freaked out over her saying the name, but in my mind I was thinking, 'Go Hermione!'

"Well, that's the plan anyway," Hermione continued. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to—"

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" said a blonde Hufflepuff by the name of Zacharias Smith. He bothered me and I would often call him Zach just to get on his nerves.

"Well, Dumbledore believes it," Hermione started before she was cut off by the boy again.

"You mean, Dumbledore believes _him_," he said and nodded his head towards Harry.

"Who are _you_?" Ron asked the boy.

"Zacharias Smith and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes _him_ say You-Know-Who is back."

"Look," Hermione said, breaking up the almost-fight quickly. "That's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about."

"It's okay, Hermione," Harry said.

"What makes me say You-Know-Who is back?" Harry asked rhetorically. "I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you don't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

"All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know." I was the lucky person who didn't get to know any of this. He thinks he's got it bad… I come back and find out my ex-boyfriend is dead.

"If you've come here to exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you." His temper was rising, as usual nowadays. I'm pretty sure he's got a period. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."

No one moved.

"So," Hermione said again. "So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet, and where we're going to—"

"Is it true," interrupted some girl, "That you can produce a Patronus?"

"Yeah," said Harry after a murmur of interest spread through the group. I already knew that.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"Er—you don't know Madam Bones, do you?"

"She's my auntie," the girl smiled. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So—is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes," said Harry. Well I guess no one cares that I can make a frog. I guess it's just a frog after all.

"Blimey Harry!" Lee said next to me. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," said Fred. "She said you get enough attention as it is."

"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office? That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…" said Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw in my year.

There were more mutters of Harry's great achievements where I help out but never get credited for before Harry got to the point. He isn't really one for the attention he gets; I have to give him that.

"Look, I… I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything but… I had a lot of help with all that stuff…"

"Not with the dragon you didn't," Michael Corner insisted at once. "That was seriously a cool bit of flying."  
>"Yeah, well—"<p>

"And nobody helped you get rid of those dementors this summer," Susan added.

"No, no, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is—"

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" Zacharias asked.

"Here's an idea," Ron snapped loudly and rudely. "Why don't you shut your mouth?"

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he said.

"That's not what he said," Fred snapped at the boy irritably.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" George asked as he pulled out one of the joke shop items out of the bag. It was the thing I tried to convince Fred and George they would never need but they insisted on getting it anyway. They're just odd like that. They need to compare their competition and all…

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said Fred.

"Yes, well," Hermione said hurriedly. "Moving on, the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

We all agreed, except Zacharias who kept giving George and his object glances.

"Right," said Hermione. "Well, then, the next question is how often do we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week—"

"Hang on," said Angelina. "We need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No, nor with ours," Cho said.

"Nor ours," Zacharias said. It seemed like this boy _never shut up_.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone, but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters—" Hermione will never understand how important Quidditch is…

"Well said!" Ernie barked. He talked a lot as well. It must be some sort of Hufflepuff trait, because really, it doesn't seem like they have many. Hufflepuff just said she'd 'take the rest.' Do they have any redeeming traits? "Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our O.W.L.'s coming up!" He looked around as if waiting for someone to disagree with him. "I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher upon us at this critical period. Obviously they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells—"

Does he ever shut up? I swear it's all Hufflepuffs. Cedric even talked a lot, you know, when he was alive.

"We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts is that she's got some… some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry."

Everyone looked shocked, besides Luna, who's just Luna, and said, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has his own private army."

"What?" said Harry. Don't listen to her Harry…

"Yes, he's got an army of heliopaths," said Luna. I have no idea what that is.

"No, he hasn't," Hermione snapped at Luna.

"Yes he has," Luna said.

"What are heliopaths?" Neville asked.

"They're spirits of fire," Luna explained seriously. "Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of—"

"They don't exist, Neville," Hermione said.

"Oh yes they do!" Luna said angrily

"I'm sorry, but where's the _proof_ of that?" Hermione snapped at the girl.

"There are plenty of eye-witness accounts, just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you—"

"_Hem, hem_," Ginny coughed, startling the lot of us with her very good Umbridge impression. Once we all realized it was Ginny we laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and get Defense lessons?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Yes, we were, you're right."

"Well, once a week sounds cool," Lee piped up.

"As long as—" Angelina began to say.

"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch. Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet…"

No one really had an answer for that.

"Library?" Katie Bell suggested after a moment.

"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," Harry said.

"Maybe an unused classroom?" said Dean.

"Yeah," said Ron. "McGonagall might let us have hers; she did when Harry was practicing for the Twiwizard…"

"Or how about Moaning Myrtle's toilet?" I asked the group. Fred and George glared at me.

"What?" I whispered to them. "We can clear up if we need too."

"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," Hermione said. "We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and a place for the first meeting."

She searched for parchment and a quill in her bag and took a deep breath before continuing. "I—I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge—or anybody else—what we're up to."

Fred reached out and put his name on the list first. Then I signed, Lee, George, and George tried passing it too Zacharias.

"Er… Well… I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the first meeting is." There are so many improper words I could use to describe that kid, but I'll refrain.

Ernie didn't look like he wanted to sign either; Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.

"I—well, we're _prefects_," he said. Prefects made me want to puke. No offense to Ron and Hermione. Harry might be disappointed that he didn't get made one, but I sure as hell wasn't. Hermione deserved it anyway. "And if this list was found… well, I mean to say… you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out…"

"You just said this group was the most important thing you'd do all year," Harry reminded the kid.

"I—yes, yes, I do believe that, it's just…"

"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" said Hermione. This was Hermione, she wouldn't.

"No. No, of course not, I—yes, of course I'll sign." After that everyone had signed the list, ending with Zacharias. You have to be careful. Those Hufflepuffs aren't as innocent as they look.

"Well, time's ticking on," Fred said as he got to his feet. "George, Lee, Lily, and I had got items of a sensitive nature to purchase; we'll be seeing you all later."

And by that he meant materials for Weasley Wizard Wheezes.

**Another chapter! Oh, and I think you should all review, because two days ago was my birthday! July seventh… 7-7, that's like, awesome. **


	12. Chapter 12

**Notice: **Another author has put up a "tweaked" portion of my first chapter of this story and called this fic her own. Please don't confuse my story and hers. Thank you!

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Twelve****n rkh Fred and George,ussing business, as we happen to do often. But a bronze-haired beauty p**

I was sitting in the courtyard with Fred and George, discussing business, as we happen to do often. But a bronze-haired beauty pretended he was doing his homework but was really guarding me. My head kept looking back to his.

"Does it bother you guys that they're always around?" I whispered to the twins, although I knew full well that he'd be able to hear me. But then, that was kind of the point.

"Not particularly, I mean they don't really bother us," George said nonchalantly.

"I think you're the only one who _really_ dislikes them, Lily," Fred said.

I crossed my arms. "That's not true," I denied.

"It is," Fred insisted.

"Sure, Harry's peeved that their protecting him," George said.

"But he doesn't hate them."

I sighed.

"They're really not all that bad," George shrugged.

"Yeah, why do you dislike them so much?" Fred asked.

"I have my reasons," was all I said before bringing up the topic of Weasley Wizard Wheezes and turning the discussion far from where it had been previously been.

**xXx**

In the Gryffindor common room I plopped down to sit next to my dear friend, Ginny, in a plaid red and gold chair. "Hello Ginevra," I said with a smile.

Ginny looked up from her Potions book and glared at me. My twin brother may mistake Ginny for Ron's sweet little sister but I know her a bit better. She can most definitely stand up for herself, and she can get furious really quick if you give her reason to.

"Don't call me that, Isabella."

Ew, I hate when people use my first name. But in my opinion, Isabella is much worse than Ginevra. I shot her a glare back and she smirked at me.

She then turned her head and read her book. I looked over to see what she was studying. "What are you reading?" I asked her in a sing-song voice.

"A book," she said, sounding thoroughly annoyed and returned to her book. I sighed.

"Well you're no fun!"I said. Ginny snapped her book shut and set it down next to her.

"I take it you're bored?" She looked to me. I nodded my head. "Don't you have Hermione wanting you to study? Or my brothers to do whatever it is they do with you?"

"It's my day off with Hermione and Fred and George were doing business that I got bored with, surprisingly."

"How do _you_ get bored with their business?" Ginny asked, arching an eyebrow, because it was known very well that I've been into their business ever since I've been friends with them. I've always helped out in every way possible and never turned an opportunity to help them away.

"They were trying to figure out all the maths stuff," I told her. Maths was just not my thing. It's kind of a reason I was so glad Hogwarts didn't have maths. Wizarding schools were smart in the sense where they realize how much math really doesn't matter. Now, if only we could convince the school that History is just as useless.

Ginny scrunched up her nose. I've shown her my old maths books from Muggle Land and she wasn't too fond of the subject either. "I can see why you ditched them."

She reached over to grab her Potions book and I stopped her. "No, no, no, wait, I'm not done talking!" I said as I grabbed her arm. She looked over to glare at me.

"I need to finish this essay, Lily. It's due tomorrow!"

"Can't we just talk a _little bit_ longer?" I begged, doing my best to pull of that cute puppy dog look I know I have hidden somewhere deep inside of me.

"Fine, five more minutes," she said and set her book down again. Ha, win.

I grinned at her. "So how's Michael?" I asked in a sing-song voice.

She glared at me and rolled her eyes. "Do you want me to talk to you or not?"

"Fine, fine," I said as I got away from the Michael subject. "To be honest though, I always thought you and my brother would go along well together."

Then there was another glare. I mean honestly, she has to get out of the habit of doing it. It doesn't make her look attractive. It's kind of more like, 'Oooh, scary.' But I'm an amazing person who has learned to ignore these looks.

"I'm being serious you know," I said to her. "Sirius told me about this Potter-curse thing. All the men of the Potter family fall in love with red-heads. Do you know what I thought of as soon as he told me this? I thought Ginny! Don't ignore your feelings, Ginevra. You and I both know you fancy him!"

"That's it," she said as she leaned over to grab her book and stand up. "I'm going to finish my essay in the library; somewhere I know you won't be likely to follow me."

She then left me in the chair staring after her and I called out, "How can you blame me? That place is boring and I can study just as well in the common room!"

**xXx**

I honestly cannot believe that Hermione wouldn't bother to wake me up. I mean it's just a Hermione thing to do to wake me up so that I won't be late for class. I didn't have that bad of a dream last night though, so hoorah to me, but it made me sleep in. So that kind of sucks in the way that I have Snape first thing this morning and he doesn't take well to people who are late.

I grabbed my books and scurried through the halls. It seemed that everything bad had to happen to me this morning though. It took me an entire ten minutes to find my books. Maybe I should take Hermione's advice and learn to organize my things better. You don't really see Hermione late for class or anything else frowned upon unless it has something Harry-Ron tied into it.

But then in the halls I had something even better to make my day more splendid then it already was. And by saying that, I mean it in the most sarcastic way possible. I ran into my most favorite Cullen in the halls. And by saying 'most favorite' I also mean that in the most sarcastic way possible.

I just happened to be running and flew straight into him. I blame him. I mean really, he could have moved quickly and I could've just kept on running. But he didn't. He could have even caught me, I know from experience that he could have. I took one look at him from the floor, where my books were thrown and I lay, and my hair flamed red.

"Potter," he acknowledged me icily.

"Cullen," I responded with just as much spite. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a free period, patrolling the halls," he said simply with a shrug of his shoulders. "But fifth years don't have free periods so the real question is what are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm late," I replied shortly, collecting my books in between all the glares I was sending his way.

"You have Snape, don't you? He doesn't appreciate tardiness, does he?"

"I _know_ I have Snape, and he doesn't like tardiness. How do you know that anyway?" I had now collected all my books and stood up straight and glared at him.

"I was asked to memorize both you and your brother's timetables, just in case." I nodded, not able to think of any sort of retort to say back to that. It kind of annoyed me that he could follow me to my classes easily. It made him seem like a stalker. Nothing could beat the amount of stalker in him then when we were in Forks. He climbed into my room through my window and watched me sleep? Now that I think about it logically, that's kind of scary… and cute. But I'm trying my best to forget about this guy, so the cuteness of the situation will be overruled by the freakiness.

"And just for the record, Potter, just because I was asked to protect you doesn't mean I like you. In fact, I hate you, a lot. So don't go around thinking otherwise."

"I wasn't thinking that at all, Cullen. In fact, I was hoping you didn't like me, because you liking me would make the situation that much worse." Then, without a glance back, because that kind of ruins the entire thing no matter how much I want to look; I left and made my way to the dungeons, because I was now even later than I was originally.

With even more angry thoughts than I originally had I stormed through the halls. So now when I was so occupied in my thoughts on my way and two figured appeared from behind the corner, screaming "Boo!" with intense hand motions, I screamed, jumped, and sent my books flying for the second time during this trip to Snape's classroom. It felt like I was never going to make it at this rate.

I could tell my hair turned the shocked blue it usually does when I'm shocked. I looked up at the attackers to see that they were no other than Fred and George. It was just Fred and George. I really had nothing to worry about now.

I collected my books, which hadn't gone too far this time thankfully and stood up. "Guys," I whined. "I'm late for Potions."

"Why bother?" George asked as he leaned against the wall.

"Yeah, classes are over in nearly fifteen minutes anyway. There's no point." Fred said, leaning against the wall next to George.

"Oh, screw it then," I said as I dropped my books (third time) and sat down on the floor, leaning on the wall.

"You know Lily Pad, your hairs been really out of whack, lately," Fred mentioned.

"What?" I asked, looking at him like he was mad, which I'm thinking he is.

"I agree," George piped up as Fred smiled in an 'I'm finally right, ha!' way.

"We should probably get you checked out, come on," Fred said as he held out his hand to me.

"What?" I said, sitting on the ground and looking at his hand. What was I supposed to do? Am I supposed to take his hand? Where are we going? What do they mean 'checked out.' It's not like we're going to a muggle grocery store.

"We're taking you to the Hospital Wing," Fred said while glancing at his brother, who nodded in return. I took his hand and he pulled me up. George collected my books and shoved them back at me. Fred grabbed my hand, his hand was really warm and soft, and dragged me to the Hospital Wing. This is really just what I need, you know. I really need to be bothered by Madam Pomfrey all about how I'm feeling. The thing about the Hospital Wing and Madam Pomfrey is that I didn't like going because even if I'm feeling terrible going makes me feel worse because they ask you endless questions. And after a while, questions can get awkward and awkwardness should really be avoided at all costs. But right now, it doesn't look like I had much of a choice in this situation.

So we travelled through the opposite direction in the halls that I was originally going and they threw open the Hospital doors to see Madam Pomfrey tending to another student. She finished up, looked at Fred, George, and I and said the simple question that answered her mouth every time she saw the three of us. It really all started from this question. "What experiment went wrong this time?" She looked at the three of us, expecting to see a guilty face at any moment.

"It isn't an experiment this time, Madam Pomfrey," George told the lady.

"We are a bit worried about our friend here," Fred told her, pushing me forward as I stumbled a bit.

"What's wrong?" Madam Pomfrey asked, coming forward to inspect me. "Do you have a fever? Chills? Vomiting? What can I help with?"

That's another thing with Madam Pomfrey, although she can seem slightly strict at time she was always eager to help with any student that came our way, even if the cause of the injury was due to some sort of mischief, or even Dark Magic. She always gave out a helping hand.

"It's not any of those things, actually," George said.

"We were wondering about her metemorphmagus abilities," said the other twin.

"They seemed to be slightly off recently."

"And we were wondering if you had a solution for us."

"Are you having difficulty morphing, dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked me.

"Uh, er," I stuttered. Here it is with the questions. "Sort of, yet not really." She raised an eyebrow at me. I don't blame her. I didn't even understand that fully.

"When I want to, I'm having difficulties," I summed it up.

"But sometimes," George started saying.

"The littlest, tiniest thing can change her hair, when it didn't before," Fred said.

"So you are losing your control," Madam Pomfrey said, looking straight at me. "Why don't you sit down Miss Potter? Mr. and Mr. Weasley, you may leave now."

Fred and George both gave each other an identical worried glance before disappearing out of the room without another word. Once they were clearly out of sight, although I wouldn't be surprised if they were using another of their extendable ears, Madam Pomfrey began to talk again.

"Now, there are only two times when a Metemorphmagus's powers fail them. If they are so completely miserable they can't possibly manage to change their appearance whatsoever they go into what is thought to be their natural state. But on the other hand, when something heart-breaking or traumatic happens to them, they start to lose control of their emotions, and therefore their abilities. There's appearance often reflect their emotions on the outside."

"So, how can I fix that?"

"This cannot be fixed with Potions or Spells, Miss Potter, this is something entirely different. This can only be fixed when you fix it emotionally, from whatever you went through. I'd suggest talking to someone or getting help from someone. You don't always have to be so independent. These are rough times, and we've got to stick together."

**I'm so, so sorry I've been gone for like, forever guys. I've had some really big writer's block, not like that really matters or anything, but that's the best excuse I could really think of, besides the fact that I was just really procrastinating. **

**P.S. The author did take down the story once I asked her to, but if you saw it and think it was hers, it's not. It's all mine, I swear. **

**P.P.S. Review. **


	13. Chapter 13

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Thirteen**

I watched Harry pace around the large room and Hermione sit in the corner reading a book. Ron and I just sat next to each other, no idea what to do. You see, today was the day of the very first Dumbledore's Army meeting. And Harry was the one meant to teach it. But here's another thing: Harry absolutely hated public speaking. He feared it, actually. Harry Potter certainly didn't like attention. He hid from it, which was something that he couldn't do very well.

If I had wanted, I could totally hide from all the attention. But the thing was that I was the one who didn't want to. Harry stole all the attention away from me, unintentionally of course. I wanted some. He wanted to get rid of some. Harry and I are complete opposites.

But since dear Harry hated Public Speaking oh so much, I was meant to help him with the lesson, since I liked to talk, in front of large crowds as they all listened to me speak. I'm an attention-seeker, I admit it, but at least I'm not mean about it.

People started showing up soon, which made Harry freak out even more. He didn't want other people to notice, and maybe they didn't. But I did, just because I had known Harry so well. I mean, being twins with a guy does that to you.

Fifteen minutes after people started showing up, they were all here. They were circled around and waiting for someone to say something. A group of teenagers and they were actually all _quiet, _expecting Harry to say something. But Harry obviously, didn't know what to say, when to say it, and despite the fact that he was in Gryffindor, couldn't find the courage to say it. So I started.

I cleared my throat, and everyone turned their attention to me. "Hello, um, everyone. I don't know you all, really. And it would take way too much time to address you by name, and that is something we all don't have."

They all said nothing and stared at me.

"So, as you all know, Umbridge is not a very good teacher at all. She sucks. And nobody likes her. At all. So, Harry here is going to teach us how to protect ourselves because the truth is, that Voldemort is back." I saw the cringes surge throughout the crowd of teenagers. "And we need to know how to fight him, if we plan on surviving. So, here we have Harry, who is going to teach us how to do that, since he's amazing at Defense. And he's done all this amazing stuff that you all must know about and I certainly don't have to tell you about. So, without further ado, Harry Potter!"

There was silence as they all waited for Harry to speak.

"Clap or something," I told all the blank faces. I could never be a teacher. Suddenly, they all broke into an echoing applause, and Fred and George threw in a few wolf whistles.

Harry looked at me and nodded before talking to the crowd. "So… you all obviously want to know how to defend yourself against dark magic. And I guess I'm here to teach it to you. So, I was thinking for the first lesson, that we'd learn a spell that's simple but very important. And that spell is _Expelliarmus._"

The boy from Hufflepuff whose name I have never bothered to learn spoke up. "That's so stupid," he complained loudly. "That's not going to help us at all."

"I've saved my life from Voldemort from that spell," Harry said smugly to the boy, and he must have shrunk down three feet. Sometimes, I love Harry, and am occasionally proud to call him my brother. That's only on occasion though.

The Hufflepuff boy shut up.

"Now, I want all of you to split up into pairs and to practice the spell a few times," Harry instructed and I ran into the crowd to find a partner.

"Lily!" Fred called my name and grabbed my wrist. "You're my partner."

"So I don't get any say in this?" I asked, arching my eyebrow up at the ginger.

"Nope," Fred said, smiling down at me. It was his smile he wore when he had some sort of master plan going on. It frightened me. And then there was that sparkling in his eyes that accompanied the smile. He pulled me through the room and to the corner of the room.

"Ow," I complained and yanked my wrist out of his grasp. "That hurt."

"Sorry," he said quickly, glancing at me, and then changing the subject back to the way he wanted it to go. "So, I have a plan."

"I suspected so. Why didn't you fulfill it with George?"

"I wanted to fulfill it with you this time, darling Lily."

"Mm hmm," I said, looking at Fred. "Go ahead, tell me what you're planning."

"This," he said and took his wand out of his pocket of his robes that he must have never bothered to change out of. He pointed his room across the room and said the spell. The Hufflepuff boy's wand flew out of his hand and he turned around in confusion, looking for the person who did it. I doubled over in laughter.

"That was—great," I said, while still in fits of laughter.

"I knew you would enjoy that," he said with that special twinkle he carries in his eye, usually when he was doing something mischievous. I love when he gets that look in his eye.

Harry, who was walking around helping people, came over to where we were, laughing as opposed to practicing the spell. "Hello, dear brother of mine," I said, straightening up when he came over. "How are you doing today? Fred and I are certainly doing just what you had asked us to do."

Harry rolled his eyes, obviously aware that I was lying. "You two are the reason Smith's wand keeps flying out of his hand unexpectedly, huh?" Fred and I both smiled.

"Maybe," we spoke in unison.

"Good work," Harry said and turned around to help the other members of the DA. Fred and I smirked at each other and continued to attack the Hufflepuff boy across the room, and despite our constant laughter that he must have heard, he never figured out the culprit of who continuously attacked him. It's probably better that he didn't know though.

After a bit more of practicing Harry decided that it would be a good time to let us go. He let us go three at a time, since then there would be a less chance that all of us would get caught. And hey, even if three of them go caught, better them than all of us.

Fred, George, and I sat in the corner that Fred and I practiced in. Fred was next to me and George was on his other side. I leaned against the wall and pulled my legs up to my chest, and set my chin on my knees as I listened to them discuss WWW. I loved listening to them talk about it. Both of their eyes lit up and they were so excited. There never seemed to be enough time in the world for them to talk about it. I knew that they were going to make it big in this business, despite what their mother was going to think.

"What do you think, Lil?" Fred asked me, taking me out of my thoughts.

"Oh, what? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"Of course you weren't," George rolled his eyes. "We were just saying that once WWW gets up and running, you're going to have to come help us during the summer for a job, so we can have an employee that we won't have to pay that much."

"If you want me to work for you, you better pay me as much as anyone else. I'm not getting ripped off because you guys are my, supposedly, best friends."

"You are such a killjoy," George muttered and mockingly glared at me.

"But you guys still love me," I said, and smiled as largely and cutely as I thought I could, even though I probably looked very idiotic.

"For some reason, yes," Fred said.

"We're still quite unsure why though," George said and winked at me.

"Except you know exactly why," I said and smiled. I stretched my legs out and held myself up with my arms. "It's because I'm just so caring, loving, beautiful, funny, generous, amazing—"

"Sure thing, Lily Pad. Whatever you say," Fred said, smiling at me.

"I'm glad you agree with me."

**xXx**

In Transfiguration class the next day, I sat alone and to my surprise, Alice Cullen came sitting next to me. Seeing as I showed all of the Cullen's my lack of like to them, I'm surprised they still find a way to be with me. But then again, this is Alice.

"Hello, Isabella," Alice said as she sat down next to me.

"My name is Lily," I said unhappily, putting my head in my hands.

"I knew an Isabella once," Alice said, trailing off. I could feel my heart quickly hammering more and more in my chest. "She didn't like the name either. But she just had us call her Bella instead."

"That's nice," I said, trying not to show how distressed I was with her telling me this right now, as I hoped that she didn't figure out the whole "Bella Swan is Lily Potter" thing. I mean, they can't be that dumb. But so far, all of them are proving to be that way.

"Anyway, I know you hate us and all, but I figured I wanted to be friends with you."

"You just decided you wanted to be friends with me?" It came out as a question and I started giggling at Alice. I was reminded why I used to love her so much in the first place. But I knew what was going to happen. I would get close to her again and then I'd just tell her everything. And I didn't want to tell her. In fact, I didn't want to tell anyone. I didn't even want to tell Fred or George, even though they both insisted I _had_ to tell someone before Christmas otherwise they were going to force it out of me since they believed Madam Pomfrey that it was affecting my morphing abilities and all. Maybe I liked the fact that I couldn't control my hair.

Which was now red thinking about it.

"Yeah," Alice said, nodding and glancing at my suddenly-red hair. "Why does it do that?"

"I'm a metemorphmagus," I told her, even though I was sure she had to know.

"I know, but that Tonks girl is one too, and her hair doesn't change as frequently as yours does."

"We're just all different, I guess," I shrugged and then Professor McGonagall came to start the class and Alice had to shut up and stop talking to me. What Professor McGonagall was saying though was really not that interesting, so instead I set my head in my hand and stared at one particular spot on the wall while I just thought of other things.

I thought about Alice, sitting next to me. Did she miss Bella? It was harder to forget about someone who was invading your life, no matter how hard you try. I still hate Edward for doing what he did to me, but still, deep, deep, down I loved him. I'm always going to love him. I know I will, I'm not just going to suddenly stop. In fact, I don't even truly believe that I am over him. But what probably hurts me more than anything, is the fact that now he knows the real me, as opposed to a person I was pretending to be, and he hates me. I always loved him for who he was though.

I absolutely love all my friends here, seriously. I missed them so much when I was away. I love how Fred and George constantly pull pranks and anyone and everyone. Harry was my brother. I loved Hermione, Ron, and Ginny. When I came back, it was like some sort of happiness in a little glowing ball in my chest that I couldn't, and didn't want to, get rid of was inside of me. But I still remember all those times with Edward. I remember when we were in that meadow, just the two of us, the sun making his skin glitter in a billion different directions. Or all those times he told me how much he loved me, he would never leave me, he can't imagine life without me. And he said all of that, I believed it, and now just look where we are.

"Miss Potter," Professor McGonnagall snapped and brought me out of my thoughts. "Pay attention!"

"Sorry," I mumbled, regretfully slipping back into reality as I copied down the notes she had down on the chalkboard. I dipped my quill in ink and hurried to write it all down before she had to erase it. Alice cracked a smile that I could see out of the corner of my eye, but neither of us left any comment about it.

As soon as the bell rang so that I could leave, I rushed out of the room as fast as I could. I hurried ahead of Alice, and even though she could easily catch up to me, she couldn't in a hallway full of students. I hurried to the Great Hall for lunch and met up with Fred and George.

"Hey Lily Pad," they said in unison as I sat down in between them.

"Hi," I said as I reached over the table to grab the jug of water and poured it into my goblet.

"What's got you in a mood?" Fred asked.

"Yes, you usually at least give us more than a simple 'hi.'"

"Alice Cullen sat next to me during Transfiguration," I grumbled. There was no point in being quiet, because Alice probably could hear me no matter where she was at right now.

"Oh yeah, you hate all of those Cullen', don't you?" George said as he stuffed his face with chicken.

"That I do," I said as I reached for a piece of chicken for myself.

"Well on the bright side, you always have the next Quidditch game to look forward too. We're going to _cream_ Slytherin."

"And there is truly no better feeling than that," I said, smiling.

**Oh my God. Oh my God. I am so so so so so so so soooo sorry! I haven't updated this story since **_**summer**_**! I have to be the most terrible author to this story, ever! I promise that I will try to update this story much more often! I truly feel so terrible, please forgive me? I won't ever give up on this story, I swear! **

**I know I'm horrible, but please leave me a review anyway. They make me happy, and I'll remember why I love my readers so much. :)**

**Oh, and if you actually do like my writing, please check me out on Wattpad (dotcom). My username is AyanaKay, and I would really appreciate it if you voted, commented, or fanned me on there. :)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Waiting For the End- Chapter Fourteen**

The morning of the game my hair waved down my back and was the disgusting color of a mixture of green and purple: nervous and excited. And of course Fred and George had plenty of time to comment on the loveliness of it.

"Your hair looks like vomit, Lily Pad," George said, as he sat down on the right side of me and slammed a piece of toast into his mouth.

"I try," I said through a mouthful of cereal that I wasn't truly tasting, but instead forcing down my throat and adding to my stomach filled with rapid butterflies.

"What's this color mean anyway?"

I swallowed my cereal. "Nervous Green plus Excited Purple equals Vomit Hair. Didn't you guys learn your colors in Art Class?"

"Nope," they both said, and at the same time reached for more food to shove into their bodies.

I sighed and pushed the cereal away from me. "Which one of you idiots wants it?" Fred quickly slid it to his side of the table but midway to Fred, George tried changing directions of the bowl. The milk splattered across the table and I stood up and away from them.

"Okay, I'm done here," I said. "I'll see you guys at the game."

"Don't worry about it, Lily," Fred called while wrestling with George.

"This game is going to be our best yet!" George finished.

I didn't respond to them though and made my way back the several moving flights of stairs back to Gryffindor Tower. "Hey Ginny," I said as I passed her in the common room.

"Ick. Your hair looks _disgusting_."

"Thanks. I've been told," I said, continuing on my way to my dormitories. Ginny left and followed me.

"Can't you do anything about it?"

"I'm kind of nervous, and excited—first Quidditch game!"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Ginny said, entering my dorm with me and sitting on my bed. "It's going to be the best game ever."

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," I said as I rummaged through my trunk to find my maroon and gold Quidditch robes. I found them, the golden three on the back catching my attention, and pulled it out from under other clothes, books, and prank products. I grabbed the hairbrush from the top of the mess and flipped my head over and brushed my hair out, the collected it and wrapped a hair tie around it. "But what's supposed to be so special about this game?"

"I guess everyone can just feel it," Ginny shrugged and played with a loose string on my quilt.

"We'll see," I mumbled.

When I got down to the locker room Harry grabbed my wrist and pulled me over. He whispered urgently, "Have you seen what the Slytherin's are wearing?"

"Their robes?"

"No," Harry said sharply. "Their badges. The badges, they say, 'Weasley Is Our King.'"

"Why would they say that? Ron's on our team!"

"Honestly, how dumb are you, Lily? They mean that he's going to suck."

"Oh," I said, looking at the ground. "Well we'll see what they say when we cream them." I smiled and walked away to stand by Fred and George.

"See the badges?" George asked, while slipping an arm through his robe.

"I've heard about them."

"Ron better not screw this up for us," Fred muttered, his head popping out of the top of his number one robes. I slapped his arm, leaving a faint pink mark.

"He's your brother," I snapped. Fred shrugged.

"Exactly."

I rolled my eyes and Angelina started her pre-game speech. "Okay, I've just found out the line-up for Slytherin. Last year's Beater's, Derrick and Bole, have left now, but it looks as though Montague's replaced them with the usual gorillas, rather than anyone who can fly particularly well. They're two blokes called Crabbe and Goyle, I don't know much about them—"

"We do," Harry and Ron chorused.

"Well, they don't look bright enough to tell one end of the broom from another, but then I was always surprised Derrick and Bole managed to find their way onto the pitch without signposts."

"Crabbe and Goyle are in the same mold," Harry said.

"It's time," Angelina said. "C'mon everyone… good luck." The team stood off the benches and threw their brooms over their shoulders. When we got out onto the field the Slytherin team was already there waiting for us, their famous, silver badges were glistening, and I couldn't make myself take my eyes off of them. They were mocking me, like maybe this game wouldn't be nearly as perfect as everyone was saying it was going to be.

"Captains shake hands," Madam Hooch ordered and Angelina and Montague shook hands, Montague crushing Angelina's fingers. "Mount your brooms."

We mounted just as the whistle blew and kicked off, soaring into the higher atmosphere of the Quidditch field. Lee's commentary echoed throughout the stadium. "And it's Johnson, Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, I've been saying it for years but she still won't go out with me. "

"JORDAN!"

"Just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest—"

I flew around to Katie Bell, who got the Quaffle from Angelina and I went farther down away and she passed it to me. We tossed it back and forth across the court and I shot to score, but the Slytherin Keeper saved it.

I tried to pay attention to the game, to keep my head it in. But I heard singing coming from the Slytherin side of the stands. This cannot be good. I tried to decipher the lyrics while working on stealing the ball away from Warrington.

_Weasley cannot save a thing,  
>He cannot block a single ring,<br>That's why all Slytherin's sing:  
>Weasley is our King!<em>

_Weasley was born in a bin,  
>He always lets the Quaffle in,<br>Weasley will make sure we win,  
>Weasley is our King!<em>

_Weasley is our King,  
>Weasley is our King,<br>He always lets the Quaffle in,  
>Weasley is our King.<em>

Ron let Slytherin score, so that now they were ten more than us. Ten to zero. Katie had the ball, so I flew in closer to her. She passed the ball to me, I caught it in my arms, and tucked it under my armpit while I soared closer to the Slytherin's goal.

I felt a gust of wind blow through my hair, and Fred appeared, swinging the bludger that was going straight for my head rocketing in the other direction. "Careful, Lily Pad," Fred said, and smirked before flying away.

I passed the ball to Angelina and she scored for us. The Slytherin's currently had thirty more points than us, but that wasn't too bad. Fourty to ten. Harry could easily catch the tiny golden snitch and win us the game still. Loony Luna Lovegood was dressed as a lion, and I could hear the roars loudly in the crowd. But the Slytherin's, with their chorus, continued to grow louder and louder.

_Weasley was born in a bin!  
>He always lets the Quaffle in!<br>Weasley will make sure we win!_

Focus on the game. I have to focus on the game. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harry dive down, and Malfoy close, the two of them were neck and neck. Harry's arm reached for the snitch, and he enclosed his fingers around it, just as a bludger hit Harry in the back. Madam Hooch's whistle echoed, and the angry comments from the stands came forth.

"Are you all right?" Angelina asked, as I landed down by Harry, Fred and George behind me.

"Course I am," Harry said.

"It was that thug Crabbe. He whacked the Bludger at you the moment he saw you'd got the Snitch—but we won, Harry, we won!"

Draco Malfoy snorted from behind us though as Harry got off his feet.

"Saved Weasley's neck, haven't you? I've never seen a worse Keeper, but then, he was born in a bin. Did you like my lyrics, Potter?"

Harry said nothing, but I knew he wanted too. He turned around and joined me and the rest of the team. We were hollering and yelling in excitement of our triumph over Slytherin, no matter how badly Malfoy wished to ruin that for us.

"We wanted to write another couple of verses! But we couldn't find rhymes for fat and ugly00we wanted to sing about his mother, see—"

"Talk about sour grapes," Angelina said, casting a glance to Malfoy.

"We couldn't fit in useless loser either, for his father, you know."

This is the moment where Fred and George realized what they were talking about. "Don't listen to him," I hissed.

"Leave it," Angelina said and took Fred by the arm. "Leave it, Fred. Let him yell, he's just sore he's lost, the jumped up, little—"

"But you like the Weasley's, don't you Potter? Spend the holidays there and everything, don't you? Can't see how you stand the stink, but I suppose when you've been dragged up by Muggles even the Weasleys' hovel smells okay—"

Harry grabbed George to stop him, but it took all of Angelina, Katie, and I to hold back Fred the best we could. Malfoy was laughing at the scene in front of him, the chaos he had so perfectly created.

"Or perhaps," Malfoy added to it. "You can remember what your mother's houses stank like, Potter, and Weasley's pigsty reminds you of it."

Even my hair shot up the most red it has been in a while, and even though I tugged back on Fred all I really wanted to do was set him free and watch him attack Malfoy. I wanted to see Malfoy's face when his fist connected to it, because Malfoy deserved it. You don't talk about people's dead parents.

But I got the satisfaction, although not from Fred, because George and Harry both sprinted at Malfoy and tore him apart, like a Muggle.

Angelina and Katie cried, "Harry! HARRY! GEORGE! NO!" And although I knew this was bad, and I wanted it to stop and continue all at once, I spoke no words and watched the events.

Madam Hooch came over swiftly, screaming, "What are you doing?" The fighting stopped, mostly thanks to the Impediment Jinx Madam Hooch had conjured.

"I've never seen behavior like it—back up to the castle, both of you, and straight to your Head of House's office! Go! _Now!"_

**XxX**

"Why'd you hold me back, Lily? I could have had him!"

"I know, Fred, okay? I'm sorry. You can go pound his face in later." I said, watching Fred pace in front of the fire place and put his hands in his hair. "At least you're not in trouble like Harry and George are!"

"I wish I was. Did you hear the way he was talking about my family? Did you hear him talking about your mum?"

"Yes, Fred, I did hear him say all of that stuff about my mum, actually," I snapped. "Don't remind me."

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Where are they? Professor McGonnagall would have given them their detention by now," I said, sinking into the armchair located by the fire.

The portrait door swung open in that moment and a grumpy George and Harry wore frowns as they were surrounded by people. "Come on," I said, and grabbed Fred's wrist to pull him over to George and Harry. We had to fight through the immense crowd to get to them and find out the information.

"We're banned from Quidditch—for life," Harry said unhappily.

"_What?_" I cried. Quidditch was nothing if we didn't have Harry and who could possibly match Fred in another beater? It seemed impossible. And McGonnagall wouldn't just ban them from it. Give them detention, probably, but ban them forever?

"It was Umbridge. She came in. Something about being someone who can discipline and has more ruling than the average teacher," George said. "Even banned you too," he said to Fred.

"_What?_ I didn't even touch that twat!"

"She said something about, you would have, if those three hadn't been holding you back," George said and point to Angelina, Katie, and I.

"Banned?" Angelina said, still refusing to believe in it herself. "_Banned. _No Seeker and no Beaters… What on earth are we going to do?"

"That is just so unfair!" I said. "What about the bludger Crabbe hit after the whistle had been blown? Has she banned him?"

"No," Ginny said bitterly. "He just got lines. I heard Montague laughing about it at dinner."

"And banning Fred when he didn't do anything!" Angelina said.

"It's not my fault I didn't," Fred defended himself. "I would've pounded he little scumbag to a pulp if you three wouldn't have been holding me back."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said and sighed. "I'm going to bed." I got up and left the group discussing the Quidditch tragedies. The rest of the Quidditch season is officially going to suck with Harry, Fred, and George gone from the team.

**And I've been gone forever again… but I have a reason! Sort of, I mean, I was in my school's play and busy all the time, but yeah. I'll try to update more, but don't I always say that? **

**Review anyway, please! **


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